Cybersecurity is a dynamic, constantly changing environment that demands agility from IT teams. Last year’s best practices can quickly devolve into dangerous risks, and industry leaders are always looking for the latest security trends to cover their vulnerabilities.
2018 was a year of security failures, privacy problems, and surreal headlines like the Japanese cybersecurity minister’s admission that he’s never used a computer. It was an election year that finally exposed the true extent of digital voting machines’ lack of security.
It was also the year that Europe implemented the strictest privacy protection law in the world thus far. Most experts agree that this is a move that the United States will soon parallel.
These are the events that will influence and inform that security landscape for 2019. Security professionals are responding to these events when considering the latest cybersecurity trends to follow.
Top Cybersecurity Trends for 2019
The industry’s most reputable security professionals have sifted through the headlines of 2018 to identify the most pressing security trends business owners and office managers should be aware of for the coming year. Pay attention to these trends in your IT security plans for the coming year:
1. Zero Trust Is Giving Way to Behavioral Biometrics
With all of the uncertainty in the air, it’s unsurprising that last year’s top cybersecurity professionals largely adopted a zero-trust model for handling network traffic. Zero trust offers excellent protection against insider threats and sophisticated cyberattacks by quarantining damage to specific devices.
But zero trust is difficult to implement in legacy networks and it often presents challenges to employee productivity. Imagine completing a complex two-factor authentication every time you want to send or receive an email.
Now, cybersecurity professionals are looking to behavioral biometrics to address these problems. These applications capture and analyze behavioral data to authenticate users.
For example, your accounting supervisor may be a left-handed speed typist who regularly clocks more than 80 words per minute. If behavioral biometrics determines a right-handed user leisurely typing away on that supervisor’s account, it will immediately flag and quarantine the profile. Mobile applications can measure the angle at which users hold their mobile devices and a great deal of similar user-unique data.
2. Stricter Compliance Regulations
It’s virtually guaranteed that a GDPR-like national data privacy standard will surface in the United States within the next five years. Prior to that development, IT security teams will see stricter data privacy regulations and increased activity towards enforcing those regulations.
IT teams will find stricter regulations particularly more noticeable with respect to data breach notification rules. It’s likely that the terms for notifying users of breaches will become shorter while the price of noncompliance rises dramatically.
3. Increased Interest in Cloud-Based Security
Cloud-based security vendors are already an important part of the cybersecurity marketplace. But there are plenty of corporate holdouts who insist on maintaining their own in-house security solutions.
Upcoming changes in data security regulation are likely to convince corporate holdouts to consider cloud-based security solutions that offer on-demand compliance. Increasingly complex regulation will put in-house security teams at a disadvantage compared to cloud-based security vendors that can offer accessible, scalable solutions at a fraction of the price.
4. Cybersecurity Will Become More Intelligence-Driven
Cybercriminals already rely on fast-moving, automated attacks that often synchronize with multiple attack vectors to confuse victims while probing work weaknesses. Cybersecurity professionals will have to develop intelligent solutions to respond proactively to these threats.
Intelligence and speed will become the most important aspects of the cybersecurity framework. Cybercriminals have access to the same machine learning technologies that cybersecurity teams have, so the need for artificially intelligent security solutions will increase.
In 2019, cybersecurity solutions will have to determine malware vs. virus signatures using automatic processes so that IT security teams have more time to respond to advanced threats. Malware protection will likewise have to become more streamlined than it is now.
5. The Cybersecurity Talent Gap May Widen
The cybersecurity talent gap is one of the main factors pushing businesses towards cloud-based security options, managed network services, and artificially intelligent automation. The fact is that there simply are not enough skilled cybersecurity professionals on the market to fill the number of positions open.
Cybercriminals know that there are not enough cybersecurity professionals to satisfy the industry’s needs. This is precisely why they disproportionately target small businesses.
Prepare Your Organization for Tomorrow’s Security Landscape
With the cybersecurity talent gap widening, managed network vendors are dedicating more resources than ever to fulfilling their security needs. At the same time, noncompliance is becoming an increasingly risky position to take, and organizations need to invest in state-of-the-art security technology like behavioral biometrics to keep their users safe.
Invest in your organization’s cybersecurity infrastructure so keep your data private and your processes compliant. Talk to a Smile security expert today to get started.
