7 Top Cybersecurity Trends in 2019

Forty-three percent of businesses were a victim of a cybersecurity breach in the past year, based on the recent Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2018. Organizations are continuing to do a less than stellar job protecting their users’ data from inadvertent exposure, such as exposed APIs, poor authentication, etc. In fact, 4.5 billion data records were compromised worldwide in the first half of 2018, according to Gemalto.

What will we see in 2019? Here are my top cybersecurity trends and predictions:

1. An explosion of two-factor authentication technologies.

Devices from Tesla (Drive PIN) to banking systems are incorporating two-factor solutions that are streamlined for their users and customers.

2. On-by-default BitLocker encryption in Windows.

In an era when our phones are encrypted by default, yet our primary computer OS doesn’t encrypt disk contents by default? Expecting home users to create boot partitions, administer TPM chips and voluntarily enable BitLocker is unrealistic.

3. The adoption of non-persistent desktops.

We will see an ever-growing adoption of non-persistent desktops. These would be virtual machine-based master images that are created for a user for a limited period of time. When they leave for the day, the image is deleted and at next log on, a new copy of the master image is created for them.

4. Phishing attacks will not go away.

We will see these attacks incorporate schemes to get train endusers to provide access and money with their two-factor devices. As these attackers learn how we are training people, they will begin to find ways to take advantage.

5. The cloud will continue to incorporate more on-premise services and technologies.

One area that will move to the cloud is the outbound and inbound SSL/TLS inspection appliances. Almost every corporate customer I work with has these, and in some cases, has hundreds of them. This could potentially become a scalable service in the cloud.

6. “Always encrypted” will become a thing.

Cloud providers are doing a better job with data encryption at rest, but we will see a growing number of services and processing systems that will enable organizations to encrypt data all the way from a disc to a user’s screen.

7. 2019 will be the year of a cloud service attacked by ransomware.

Read my complete interview with Ben Canner here in Solutions Review.