Throughout this challenging year, we’ve heard many inspiring statements about staying strong. One way I have been able to fight through the year is by working with our clients to ensure they maintain their vigilance about cybersecurity.
Let’s give 2020 the old one-two punch with these top trends for fighting cybercrime.
1. Cybercriminals Follow Us Home
With the massive shift of employees working from home, employee use of technology and devices shifted. Many companies were not ready to support a remote workforce securely. We saw cybercriminals launch a slew of attacks, including phishing, vishing, ransomware and more.
Per a Malwarebytes survey, before the Covid pandemic, 72% of companies did not have any BYOD malware protection or relied upon endpoint software installations for protection. This lack of preparedness was disastrous for many businesses. In 2020, over 25% of companies paid unexpected expenses specifically to address a cybersecurity breach or malware attack.
Forrester is predicting that remote work will rise to 300% of pre-Covid levels. After we get through this pandemic, most companies will incorporate a hybrid work model where employees spend less time in the office and more time working from home or other remote locations. A significant portion of workers have already developed the skills and preference for effective remote work. Employees will expect a work-from-anywhere tech and culture moving forward.
One of the most effective ways to improve security for your remote workforce is to utilize Desktop as a Service (DaaS). While local desktops can be easily manipulated and hijacked, cloud desktops are resilient to malicious injection and ransomware. You can read more about the benefits of DaaS in my previous blog, The Power of Virtual Desktops.
We will continue to monitor our clients’ security approach because cybercrime will continue to evolve and try to exploit remote workers as the ideal entry point into IT systems.
2. Convergence Across Security Solutions
The rapid digital transformation in 2020 will impact cybersecurity in 2021. Malicious hackers will continue to exploit the security vulnerabilities caused by mistakes during this rapid transition. New data breach patterns will emerge from these criminals.
The trend will be for businesses to turn to platforms that integrate multiple solutions. Companies must close the digital transformation gaps within their systems. For example, cloud misconfigurations have been one of the top causes of data breaches.
Secure access service edge (SASE) platforms will have a major impact in 2021 because SASE simplifies network infrastructure by merging networking and security services into a unified architecture. Therefore, SASE can replace a number of disjointed products and extend consistent protections across IT resources through a single control point. IT teams will enjoy consolidated ease of management that will save them time and effort.
Soon we will knock-out 2020 and ring in 2021. We’ll celebrate the new year battle with more robust cybersecurity and continue to thwart cybercrime.
