Cybersecurity: the Five Biggest Threats to Our Security

What are the top 5 cybersecurity threats this year? From phishing and fake cloud applications to ransomware and malware.

These days, cybercriminals are ambitious and innovative, with quite a few tools and resources at their disposal to track high-stakes targets and execute malicious code - all while flying completely under the radar. So what are the top five cybersecurity threats this year?

To prepare you for the future, here are five of the top cybersecurity threats you could face in 2020.

Misconfigured Cloud Environments Set the Stage for Malicious Attacks

Cybersecurity is important and is becoming more and more crucial. Cloud misconfigurations were responsible for some of the most outrageous security flaws in the recent past. Last year, a Seattle-based hacker used a misconfigured web application firewall to access files belonging to a large financial institution hosted on Amazon's AWS S3 servers. This resulted in a data breach that compromised the personal information of 100 million credit card customers. Unlike other threats, this security issue occurs internally. Often times, this is a simple mistake to make when deploying cloud resources. This also paves the way for insider threats in cloud deployments, aim at the cloud.

What Does a Cybersecurity Threat or Attack Cost?

Experts found that 53% of ransomware attacks resulted in damage worth $ 500,000 or more.

However, the global economy has not really come to terms with how much the damage from ransomware attacks could actually be in 2020. Some speculate that it is a multi-billion dollar "dark economy".

To understand the real impact of cyberattacks and their impact on businesses, VMware surveyed 250 US-based CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs. VMware Carbon Black published its first US threat report as part of a global effort to form a concerted alliance to fight cybercrime. In the USA alone, investments in securing the company network and IT infrastructure have increased significantly. An average of nine or more cybersecurity tools is already implemented in the company.

Cybersecurity: Phishers Throw a Wider Net

As one of the cheapest and most efficient ways to achieve goals on a large scale, it's no surprise that phishing is a leading cause of data breach according to Verizon 2019 DBIR. However, hackers use a variety of advanced techniques to improve their game. Phishers target numerous SaaS business applications, which now account for 36% of all attacks. They continue to use personal information that is shared on numerous social media websites. You want to use it to create more authentic, interpersonal messages. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify these attacks - even for the most tech-savvy user.

Malware Developers Improve Their Methods

Malware grew by leaps and bounds in 2019 and shows no signs of slowing down in 2020. According to AV-TEST, cyberattackers have exceeded the total number of known malware examples to over a billion - with attacks that are more sophisticated than ever before. Fileless malware attacks - malicious code piggybacked on legitimate software - continue their upward trend, along with new forms of "Stalkerware" - spyware that tracks victims' smartphone data to keep track of their activities. In the ransomware landscape, new families target high-quality business data while others like Maze punish victims who fail to pay. This is no longer just true of Android or Windows users. Cybersecurity is therefore becoming increasingly important.

Compliance and Regulatory Incidents Cost Organizations a Lot

The regulatory landscape has seen some upheaval recently. This turns the risk of compliance violations and regulatory incidents into a major challenge. The newly enacted California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPC) contains many detailed requirements for consumer control of data, including knowing what a company has collected, how it's used, how it's shared, and with whom. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union contains 99 articles in 11 chapters. These cover everything from protocols for reporting violations to a consumer's "right to be forgotten". If an organization detects a violation, the costly penalties include fines of more than $ 20 million or up to 4% of global annual sales. To stay up to date, try an antivirus software that is best for your business.