Cybersecurity Statistics, Facts, and Trends in 2020

cybersecurity

The number of reported security breaches has been on the rise in recent years. Likewise, new processes and technologies have been developed to prevent breaches. This is why cybersecurity remains a hot topic, as well as a priority for organizations in all industries.

In today’s digital world, organizations create large volumes of data, thus necessitating the need to protect it from unauthorized access and misuse. According to C-Level industry experts, these are some of the cybersecurity statistics, facts, and trends that you should expect to see in 2020.

Data Utilization Across Organizations

Digital transactions are expected to keep growing as we head into 2020. As a result, data will remain a crucial component for organizations that undertake digital transactions. There will also be an increase in the utilization of data shared by organizations. Although there have been fears that the sharing of data will lead to possible breaches, organizations will take measures aimed at ensuring that the data is secured.

Related: Zero Trust for Remote Work: Protecting Your Network in the Age of Distributed Teams

Cybersecurity Budgets Will Rise

Global cybersecurity spending in 2019 reached an all-time high. An industry forecast indicates that global IT security spending in 2020 will surpass $1 trillion. The expenditure will be driven by companies’ quest to secure their IT resources.

Security Services Will Outpace Software

According to cybersecurity experts, 2019 is the advent of the golden age of security services. This is attested to by the fact that organizations are increasingly channeling more funds towards fortifying their cybersecurity stance. Since 2018, expenditure on security services has been surpassing other investments made by organizations.

Hackers Will Target Shadow IT Resources

It has been predicted that in 2020, thirty percent of successful cyber attacks will be on the shadow IT resources of organizations.

Known Vulnerabilities Will be Targeted More

In 2020, 99% of security vulnerabilities exploited by hackers will still be the ones known to cybersecurity experts. Organizations should focus on fixing these vulnerabilities rather than trying to discover new ones. Known vulnerabilities are easier to mitigate.

The Development of Data Security Governance Programs

In 2020, the increasing need to prevent breaches on public clouds will drive most organizations to create enterprise-wide data security governance programs. To do this, you must first identify policy gaps and, if necessary, seek cyber insurance.

Rise of Security Assessments

In 2020, it’s expected that organizations will beef up their cybersecurity stance by undertaking security assessments. Consequently, audit reports will become commonplace and an integral component of the decision-making process.

CISOs Will Gain More Visibility

CISOs are being allocated bigger cybersecurity budgets to address the ever-changing security threats. This will give them more visibility as they focus on creating security ecosystems that address risks in real-time.

Compliance Issues Will Gain More Visibility

According to PwC, the C-suite will get more concerned about issues related to compliance, and the digital business risks that arise from it. Likewise, they will partner more with CISOs and other executives to eliminate cyber threats that hamper their organizations’ growth prospects.

Cyber Warfare Will Become a Household Issue

In recent years, there has been a growing trend that has seen cybercriminals targeting households. They use these attacks to infiltrate the systems and networks of large organizations ultimately. Cybercriminals will ramp up these attacks in 2020, thus the need to brush up your cybersecurity protocols.

Healthcare Cyber Investments Will Keep Lagging Behind

Five-year projections for cybersecurity spending indicated that government institutions, manufacturing, and finance industries have higher expenditure than other sectors. The healthcare industry still lags in security deployment and expenditure.

SMBs Have Small Cybersecurity Budgets

Generally, enterprise organizations allocate bigger budgets to cybersecurity than SMBs. Some SMBs do not even have dedicated cybersecurity staff in the fast place, even though hackers target nearly 67% of SMBs. You shouldn’t expect this to change in 2020.

Improved Threat Detection

In 2020, CISOs will ramp up the utilization of high-tech tools for better threat detection and mitigation. These tools include automated threat seekers, high-tech deception systems, and robotic threat hunters. Organizations will be notified whenever there’s a breach, something that will go a long way in minimizing threats.

Increased Focus on Cloud Security Platforms

The uptake of cloud-based cybersecurity solutions has characterized in 2019. Expect more companies to embrace these solutions as we head into 2020. Cloud-based security platforms are not only flexible and scalable but can also be easily coordinated with multiple devices.

IDaaS Implementations Will Be Embraced

During the first few months of 2019, Identity as a Service (IDaaS) implementations replaced on-premises identity and access management (IAM) implementations. This has helped bolster the cybersecurity stance of many organizations. Companies will keep embracing IDaaS as we head into 2020.

Uptake of Recognition Technologies

Even though organizations have been fortifying their password policies, data breaches have persisted. If recent developments are anything to go by, the use of tokens and passwords in medium-risk situations will reduce due to the uptake of recognition technologies.

More Enterprise Attacks Will Target IoT

There has been a recent upsurge in attacks targeting IoT devices. In 2020, over 20% of known enterprise attacks will involve IoT. Unfortunately, IoT will account for less than 10% of IT security badges.

The Prominence of Cloud-Based Access Security Brokers

By 2020, more than 80% of new deals targeting cloud-based access security brokers (CABSs). These deals will be packaged with a secure web gateway, web application firewall, and network firewall platforms. Although there are concerns about customer migration to the cloud, CASB investment will be justified.

More Organizations Will Leverage Native Mobile Containment

This coming year, there will be a growth in the number of organizations that leverage native mobile containment instead of third-party options. Enterprises with average security requirements will also join the fray.

Businesses Will be Designed More Securely

Previously, companies regarded cybersecurity as an afterthought. To stay afloat in the face of increased cyber attacks, more businesses are remodeling their operational setups with cybersecurity in mind. New security protocols are getting established to keep cyber threats at bay.

Cybersecurity Will be Intel-Driven

Experts predict that cybersecurity will become more intel-driven in 2020. With more operations getting automated, intelligence will go a long way in thwarting vicious cyber crimes. With more intel, organizations will be in a position to respond to threats faster and more effectively.

Organizations Will Face Tighter Regulations

Governments and regulatory agencies constantly draft new security policies, procedures, and regulations. The increasing pressure of compliance that organizations face means that they must stay apprised with the new rules to survive. The tighter regulations that are getting imposed on enterprises will undoubtedly affect risk.

Discovering Vulnerabilities Will Be a Priority

In 2020, there shall be a notable increase in common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs). This is a catalog of known security threats. With advances in technology, expect cybercriminals to get better at their dark trade. Similarly, CISOs will ramp up their efforts to prevent attacks.

The Creation of A Security Culture

Often, data breaches arise from process or people failures. In 2020, companies will focus more on creating a security culture as a strategy to address gaps in their security ecosystem. This will result in the C-suite, making investments on mitigation tools that have the most significant impact. CISOs will also prepare themselves to address cases whereby cybersecurity tools don’t automatically lead to reduced risk.