Five Cybersecurity Trends in 2021

Cybersecurity is probably the hottest topic of modern time. Businesses and individuals are both doing their best to prevent sensitive data leaks and mitigate potential risks. Gartner recently named cybersecurity and regulatory compliance the top two biggest concerns of corporate boards.   Actual cybersecurity trends to focus on include the expanding cyber-attack surface, increased usage of ransomware as a cyber weapon, threats to critical infrastructure via industrial control systems. Let’s take a closer look at how these threats impact businesses and individuals and discover some actionable steps you can take to be more secure.

1. Expanding Cyber-Attack Surface

Businesses rapidly digitalized in 2020. It is estimated that digital transformation was advanced by up to seven years. At the same time, cybercriminals also changed their tactics to take advantage of these changes, states Nasdaq . For example, the increased popularity of remote work is here to stay as well as related risks. The same applies to the Internet of Things which has completely changed the dynamics and the size of the expanding cyber-attack surface. With an estimated 50 billion connected devices, hackers have a multitude of options to breach cyber-defense.

2. Ransomware continues to dominate cyber threats.

Ransomware is a type of malware that denies users and system administrators access to files or entire networks. Once the malware infects systems, threat actors will send a ransom note demanding payment. An average cost of a ransomware attack in 2020 has reached $440 000, and global damage caused by ransomware grew from $11.5 billion in 2019 to $20 billion in 2020. The most effective ways of mitigating ransomware risks are user education and training, automating backups, minimizing attack surfaces, having an incident response plan, and installing endpoint monitoring.

3. High demand for Security Operations Center (SOC) services

Security Operation Centers (SOC) provide real-time monitoring, detection, and response to mitigate or prevent cyber-attacks when they occur. The key benefit of a SOC is a holistic approach to security guaranteed by centralizing the display of assets, collaborating across departments and functions, and ultimately maximizing awareness to minimize costs. For small and mid-sized businesses outsourcing cybersecurity services to SOC is a more cost-efficient option. It is less expensive to subscribe to a monthly subscription than hire and maintain an internal department.

4. Extended Detection and Response (XDR) will be on the rise

IT security teams are under pressure to see all enterprise and customer data across email, endpoints, networks, servers, cloud platforms, and mobile apps. As a result, Extended Detection and Response (XDR) is gaining popularity as it automatically collects data from multiple endpoints and correlates the results for faster detection of threats and quicker responses to incidents. For example, security teams can analyze details of a cybersecurity incident found on a server, network, and app to show the visibility, scale, and context of an incident.

5. Threats Against Critical Infrastructure

“Cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure have become the new normal across sectors such as energy, healthcare, and transportation” – has been stated in the Global Risks report 2020. Hackers often seek out unsecured ports and systems on industrial systems connected to the internet. The recent Solar Winds Cyber-attack can also be viewed as a wake-up call for the interactive nature of Operation Technology (OT) infrastructures.   The listed trends are just an iceberg top. As digitalization and cloud transformation gain traction business owners and executives will actively search for the new effective ways of data protection against increasingly complex cyberattacks. In this process, it is wise to rely on an experienced partner and adviser. Check our cybersecurity services out to bring your cybersecurity to a different level!