We have entered a new decade with many innovations expected to come to fruition. However, when it comes to cybersecurity, the challenges encountered in the 2010s will remain, with high profile breaches and attacks continuing at a relentless pace. From deep fakes to breaches, hackers will continue with their aggressive and often innovative approaches to expose any and every security vulnerability to their advantage. At Enzoic, we believe that the 2020s will require a concerted and vigorous effort to defend and prevent cybersecurity attacks threats. WE predict an interesting year ahead for cybersecurity.
As the new decade dawns, expect deep fakes to become a much more critical threat. Tech giants and social media platforms alike are investing significant sums to detect them, but the damage from deep fakes is currently outpacing our ability to identify and address them. Facebook is the first to announce in 2020 that it’s banning deep fakes. Given the politically charged climate heading into the US election year, I think we’ll see deep fakes becoming an issue on the campaign trail as well as a significant enterprise security threat.
The organizations best suited to address this issue are those that can use machine learning to automate deep fake detection and create an extensive catalog of confirmed fake content from there. In the future, I predict journalists and bloggers will have the ability to upload a video to check if it is a deep fake, for example, or a financial controller could screen an audio request from the CEO against a database to vet its authenticity.
The question is, will this technology be available before deep fakes cause more damage? Expect this battle to play out between companies and deep fake creators throughout 2020–with the run-up to the presidential election only adding fuel to the fire.
In 2020, hackers will have security vendors in their crosshairs. It’s essential that security companies be the platinum standard for security; if your organization has a database of exposed passwords, for example, it’s critical that these be properly encrypted and hashed. Boasting that data or information is in plain text is like inviting a criminal to your housewarming.
Technology has historically been a blindspot for many regulators but expect to see more legislators follow in the footsteps of Representative Katie Porter, who famously grilled Zuckerberg on data privacy or Jared Polis, a former tech entrepreneur that is now the Governor of the State of Colorado. Politicians know citizens are relying on them for digital protection, and tech knowledge and analysis will become an increasingly vital bi-partisan must-have.
Hackers have yet to hold someone hostage in their connected home for ransom—but that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. In 2020, we will see more attacks directed against home automation systems and potentially some with malicious intent. “Digital eavesdropping” by hackers using compromised connected speakers, cameras, and screens could also become a more prevalent type of attack.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is an effective authentication strategy, but it’s still hackable. The new decade will continue to bring further attacks against companies that have yet to adopt a layered approach to authentication. With the FBI warning against recent methods that circumvent MFA, expect this to be behind additional breaches unless companies also apply security best practices at the password layer.
Biometrics will continue to tread water as a secondary authentication factor, with the base authentication mechanism continuing to be the password. It will not make any real headway into meaningfully displacing passwords or passcodes as the primary means of authentication. At the end of 2020, if your Face ID fails to recognize you for the umpteenth time, you’ll still be entering a passcode to unlock your phone and entering your password to unlock your laptop.
For years, the security ecosystem has been viewed as a top area for startup innovation, but in 2020, expect the tide to turn. Fearful of a data breach resulting from a third-party vulnerability, many organizations are implementing rigorous security requirements for their vendors, and the average startup will find compliance onerous at best. As this trend continues, we’ll see many small enterprise security companies acquired, fold, or pivot to a different industry.
The cybersecurity landscape is dynamic, with a constant barrage of new threats, technologies, and vulnerabilities emerging. As a result, cybersecurity will remain in the spotlight not only in 2020 but for the foreseeable future.