Top Cybersecurity Trends and Solutions for 2018

February 27, 2018

Cybersecurity is quickly gaining ground as an industry unto itself. In the past year alone, it has shown growth in the realm of 11 percent, driven largely by a push for more robust authentication solutions and advanced threat detection technologies.

The threats we face today are not the sole milieu of big business or the banking sector, either. Hospitals, universities, and SMBs seem to be easy targets for cybercriminals pushing ransomware. The success they seem to be enjoying is only going to advance their cause. A recent study finds that cybercrime is, on average, costing the global economy more than $450 billion per year.

In the past five years, we have seen some of the world’s most trusted companies brought to their knees by various types of malicious attacks.

The Amazon data breach affected hundreds of thousands of customers and any enterprise customers who were using their cloud servers. The Equifax breach revealed personal information and payment data for more than 143 million users and cost the company billions of dollars. Target’s 2013 breach affected 41 million customers and even though just last year they settled a lawsuit for $18.5M, it probably cost them closer to $300 million, all told.

New industries have grown up around these threats, creating a new normal in IT management. Cyber-insurance is now a must-have, and SaaS companies dedicated to cybersecurity are innovating, growing, and thriving. But despite all this action, only five percent of cybersecurity alarms are investigated. This is a product, some say, of the fact that so many third-party solutions are being used to stem the tide, resulting in false alarms when these solutions don’t play well together.

When a company is ignoring the bulk of the incoming threats, it is a clear indicator that something needs to change. What’s driving this trend? According to Brian Beyer, the CEO of Red Canary, a cybersecurity startup that leverages AI and human intel, there are three major blind spots:

1. Shortage of cybersecurity expertise

The increasing demand for cybersecurity technicians far outweighs the current supply. The available positions are expected to triple over the next five years. The Cybersecurity Business Report (CSO) estimates that there will be 3.5 million unfilled jobs in this area by 2021. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job postings in this sector have risen 74 percent since 2015.

2. Visibility challenges

A cybersecurity software solution or a human doing the same job can only work with the data they are given. When individual user data that exists outside of the home network, such as would be the case with remote workers or traveling employees, it is hidden from the solution. Antivirus and other malware detection would bypass these users, laying the network open to attack from within.

3. Companies are not responding to all cybersecurity alerts

When 95 percent of all threat alerts incidents go uninvestigated, there is little chance of keeping up with new threats. This is a major issue because threats are evolving at breakneck speed. If anything, and despite the deployment of the next greatest cybersecurity solution, we need to be more diligent, not less.

Cybersecurity, like the malicious threats that made it necessary, is in a constant state of evolution. Trends that are expected to grow in importance through 2018 include:

Cybersecurity trend #1: a movement toward shared frameworks

Cybersecurity is still in a nascent phase. With so many players in the market, it stands to reason that if a common language was established that it would be easier for specialist solutions to work together more efficiently. This will make it easier for vendors, IT teams, and technicians to communicate and will likely reduce the number of “false alarms” reported.

Cybersecurity trend #2: ransomware will increase

As ransomware continues to be an effective way for thieves to get what they want—whether that’s money or chaos—the ways in which they penetrate a network and their encryption techniques are bound to become craftier. Taking the time to infect a system from every possible corner is far more effective than going in for the quick kill. A multilayered cybersecurity approach must be considered, one that combines technology solutions with human intervention and proactive training for the entire workforce.

Cybersecurity trend #3: endpoint data protection

As the bulk of our data continues to move to the cloud, protecting the endpoint will become more important. With the rise of the remote workforce and BYOD, network perimeters are disappearing while mobile threats are on the rise. Endpoint protection supports centralized network security by placing barriers at any potential access point. Such as solution can be deployed to one machine or several thousand, effectively blocking malicious activities at the point of contact using a range of security measures.

In conclusion, 2018 is shaping up to be a year of advances in cybersecurity. Our new normal is hyper-vigilance, ensuring that our data and our users are protected from all directions. As a leader in enterprise VoIP telephony, CCG Telecom works with a range of cybersecurity technologies to ensure our customers are protected from end-to-end. If you would like to learn more about what you can do to keep your network and its data safe, call to speak to one of our technicians today.