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Industry Insights

2020: The Cybersecurity Year Ahead

Security never stops. As 2019 comes to an end, security professionals are looking to what is in store for the year ahead. To get some answers, we reached out to Code42 leadership and security experts to get a sense of their cybersecurity expectations for the coming year.

While they expect plenty of tough challenges when it comes to protecting data, there is some good news in the mix. The team anticipates that enterprises will take steps toward formalizing (and automating) their security programs where gaps exist.

Here’s what the Code42 team had to say:

Insider threat programs grow more prevalent

Relentless reports of new, high-profile insider breaches will push many more businesses to finally take insider threat seriously enough to formalize programs and allocate a larger budget dedicated to protecting their intellectual property. This year, at least half of data breaches involved an insider, but in 2020, that figure could exceed 60%.

When it comes to insider threat, companies will begin to lean into new technologies designed distinctly for protecting from insider threats, and they’ll stop shoehorning outdated, ineffective technologies that were never really intended to mitigate insider risks to begin with. Finally, more than 20% of organizations will begin actively measuring what departing employees take from their organization.
Joe Payne, president and CEO at Code42

The role of security will increasingly integrate within IT

With the continued cybersecurity talent gap, along with increased regulatory demands and security threats, security and IT will have to work more closely together. What I mean by this is traditional IT will be expected to take on security responsibilities, while security roles will evolve to become more hands-on and step into actual problem-solving rather than problem-identification mode. 

Security has always been positioned to cover confidentiality, integrity and availability – the well-known security CIA triad. While IT has traditionally been focused on availability, it’s increasingly recognized that data integrity and confidentiality need to be a part of the broader IT strategy. There has always been an opportunity for a natural fit between IT and security, and 2020 will prove to be the year that we recognize the similarities and start to benefit from the combined focus from these two disciplines.
Jadee Hanson, CISO and VP of Information Systems, Code42

Collaborative tools get security department green light

Progressive organizations thrive on collaboration. After all, we are in the midst of a massive culture change that centers on employees’ ability to share ideas, move faster, and collaborate. CEOs are requiring that their employees use Slack, Chatter, Box, and OneDrive to work together to be more productive. However, at the same time, CISOs have been busily blocking collaboration by using legacy prevention technology. In 2020, progressive CISOs will stop blocking and will start focusing on enabling collaboration by adopting new approaches that better address insider risk.
Joe Payne, president and CEO at Code42

DevOps teams embrace security

Organizations have adopted DevOps, but security hasn’t always kept pace. As DevOps grows, so does the desire (and the need) for security to become embedded within these teams. In the next year, organizations will increasingly seek ways to build the skills, tools, and knowledge they need to build security directly into DevOps teams.
Michelle Killian, director, information security, Code42

The security talent shortage continues

By nearly all estimates, the industry is millions of cybersecurity jobs short of what’s needed to adequately secure enterprise data. This shortage will push security teams to automate as much as they can to stretch their capabilities. Hopefully, teams will focus on optimizing the basics because it remains true that the vast majority of breaches could have been prevented if security 101 practices were followed. Areas that will be automated include manual operations tasks, application security testing, data monitoring, and more.
Todd Thorsen, senior manager information security, risk management and compliance, Code42

Security ‘solutions’ continue to grow in complexity

The complexity of security vendor solutions remains too high in cybersecurity. Many vendors continue to proudly talk about how sophisticated their products are and how they can solve complex problems. The problem is: using these security tools themselves is an overly complex and unwieldy process. At the same time, the security industry struggles with a serious shortage of skilled cybersecurity personnel. Something has to give.

In 2020, we will see security vendors focus on providing both signal and simplicity. To align with the realities of personnel shortage, solutions will surface highly actionable information and present it in easy-to-use, accessible ways so that security teams can act quickly without being embroiled in endless investigations.
Joe Payne, president and CEO at Code42

Move from reactive to proactive security

Companies are so busy reacting to incidents and putting out fires that they are missing opportunities to proactively reduce risk. One area is how staff and others will continue to be a highly exploited threat vector, yet companies will continue to trail behind mitigating their human risks. One thing is for sure: training alone is not going to work, as companies need to create security-minded cultures in their workplaces.
Chrysa Freeman, program manager, security awareness, training and culture, Code42

Expect a major breach within a federal agency

A federal agency will experience a large-scale data breach at the hands of an insider. This will highlight the growing insider threat blind spot for all large organizations.

Also, foreign hackers and the election take center stage. There will be proposed federal regulations requiring encryption back-doors and FCC regulation of social media in advance of the elections. As the elections approach, there will be reports of hacks and vulnerabilities, many with grand claims. All of these claims will be unsubstantiated, viciously spun, yet cause no direct or measurable harm. But they will create enough doubt and disruption to further the nation’s political divide.
Andrew Moravec, principal security architect, Code42

The return of ransomware

It used to be that cryptojacking—using someone else’s computing to mine cryptocurrency—was a relatively easy path to profit. But as the price of bitcoin continues to fluctuate wildly, those profits are no longer such a sure thing. As a result, adversaries will shift their attacks to optimize their efforts. Once their malware is deployed onto endpoints, they may decide ransomware is the way to go, which would very well lead to a resurgence in ransomware attacks.
Jeff Holschuh, senior manager of identity, Code42

A renewed focus on data privacy

The CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) goes into effect at the beginning of 2020. The act will have a substantial impact on companies that don’t yet have mature data security and privacy programs in place. As enforcement actions are brought under this new law, companies will scramble to ensure they are meeting all of the law’s requirements.

Essentially, CCPA focuses on data collection rules, breach disclosure, and the selling of consumer personal data. Expect not only CCPA-driven lawsuits and fines, but also a nationwide rush by companies to ensure they can comply.
Nathan Hunstad, principal security engineer and researcher, Code42

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