Organizations will need to stay focused on improving IT security in 2020

Thanks to new technologies and new applications of established technologies, the way people work will continue to change in 2020. However, securing these technologies will be high among the list of priorities for organizations. Read on for the security-related trends that will dominate the year ahead.

End Point Protection Will Assume Significance 

As the number and types of end point devices rapidly proliferate and become 'smart powered' by software and connectivity, they become critical targets and vectors for external attacks. As the threat landscape evolves to exploit sophisticated capabilities in the endpoints, so must the protection techniques. In 2020, we'll see techniques such as data loss prevention (DLP), which prevents users from leaking critical information intentionally or otherwise, and endpoint detection & response (EDR), which continuously monitors events, detects threats, performs investigation and initiates response all within the endpoint gain prominence.

AI Security Will Be An Important Investment 

While AI is all set to grow in adoption across the enterprise, it also brings new threat vectors that can be exploited to cause significant damages. Enterprises would have to understand the AI security trends and the types of possible attacks, besides ensuring that the AI models are free from algorithmic biases. This requires them to make sufficient additional investments to make AI work optimally for them.

Privileged Accounts Users Need Better Education

With the ever-changing IT landscape, those with privileged access credentials are also among those with the highest risk of cyberattacks. In 2020, IT departments and organizations as a whole will need to implement a more proactive stance on compliance and understanding of these privileged accounts, as the people with the most credentials and access, often are not the most tuned in or compliant, due to lack of pure understanding or training resources provided by the company’s experts - their IT. 

Mobile Applications Must Be Guarded Against Threats

The RSA Quarterly Fraud Report reported that there was a “300% increase in fraud attacks attributed to rogue mobile applications in quarter one of 2019” and in 2020, with the continued increase of mobile and remote devices for both work and personal usage interchangeably, this will be a major concern for businesses, especially for their IT departments. This will become especially apparent when a large application exposes a vulnerability. With the influx of non-traditional workers and their many remote devices, companies will need to make security a priority, as well as implementing solutions to help track and monitor these devices.

The author is Vice President at ManageEngine