The Future of Cybersecurity in 2021 and Beyond

Some cyber security experts agree with a report by Cybersecurity Ventures and expect financial damages from cyber crime to reach $6 trillion by the end of this year. Industry studies show that cyber-attacks are among the fastest-growing crimes in the United States.

Cyber-attacks are absolutely on the rise. Based on everything we know and every single analyst we have spoken with, there is no doubt that attacks are increasing, according to Robert McKay, senior vice president, risk solutions at Neustar.

Cyber security experts predict that in 2021 there will be a cyber-attack incident every 11 seconds. This is nearly twice what it was in 2019 (every 19 seconds), and four times the rate five years ago. The rapidly growing increase in cyber-attacks worldwide comes at a hefty cost for businesses in order to better protect their computer networks from intrusions. Cyber-attacks not only are increasing in frequency, but they are costing victims larger financial losses.

Much more results in the growing pace of cyber-attacks than rampant migration to cloud storage and misconfigured cloud infrastructure. Still, misconfigurations in cloud infrastructure lead to data exposure and are among the biggest concerns for cyber threats facing business and government agencies today, noted Kinsella.

Nearly 98 percent of all cyber-attacks rely on some form of social engineering to deliver a payload such as malware or ransomware. One of the most successful attack formats cyber criminals use regularly to initiate a social engineering attack is through phishing emails. Therefore, threat actors distribute malware via email approximately 92 percent of the time. Cloud use and the continued stampede to cloud services are not going away. That ongoing shift in computing practices must be managed with more vigilance.

COVID has accelerated organizations' digital transformation. Therefore, the ability to set up workloads in the cloud and get them through compliance and security challenges is in demand, noted Mohit Tiwari, co-founder and CEO at Symmetry Systems.

Those looking after cloud-based security need to broadly learn to manage infrastructure through structured programs, instead of shell scripts pieced together. As networks and application tiers become ephemeral, the most important persistent asset for any enterprise will likely be their own and their customers' data. So data-security on the cloud will be a major theme going forward.

Looming Threats

Over the next year, ransomware will continue to be the biggest threat and financial risk to enterprises, observed Joseph Carson, chief security scientist and advisory CISO at Thycotic. Most organizations should be very concerned about ransomware as the biggest cybersecurity challenge and threat, he advised.

Ransomware continues to evolve into more than just a security incident. Cybercriminals now seek data breaches with organized cybercrime groups to steal the data before they encrypt on corporate servers. Companies are not just worried about getting their data back but also who it gets shared with publicly.

Cybercriminals use ransomware to target anyone, any company, and any government including hospitals and transportation industries at a time when they are under extreme pressure, Carson added.

Another major cybersecurity attack trend focuses on the protective tools and security vendors within the industry, noted Brandon Hoffman, chief information security officer at Netenrich. The tools that the industry relies on and their providers are becoming more targets for attacks.

"The attacks targeting security organizations and vendors were always high up on the adversary list, but success begets further success."

Cybersecurity Higher Education

One of the often unspoken ways of safeguarding against cybersecurity assaults is through education. This approach goes beyond teaching company workers to be better aware of safe computing ideals. Rather, recruiting the next crop of computer specialists to pursue a degree in cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity prospers because so many professionals come from different backgrounds and skill sets, noted Heather Paunet, senior vice president at Untangle.
The emerging field of cybersecurity is a very viable career path, noted Michael Kaczmarek, vice president of product management at Neustar. Industry reports show that the number of unfilled cybersecurity jobs is expected to grow by 35 percent.The demand for cybersecurity jobs has certainly increased in the past year, agreed Dov Lerner, security research lead at Sixgill. A career path in the field is a great choice for someone interested in IT and security. Security analysts have the opportunity to impact more than just their specific industry.