The cybersecurity predictions for 2020 are not comforting. To say it is a study published today by Bitdefender.
It seems that reports of vulnerabilities will increase over the next year, considering that the number of threats detected has been constantly growing in recent years and is not decreasing despite the educational programs and increased technological education even within companies.
This growth is attributable partly to the greater complexity of the software and the knowledge required to prevent attacks since malware and hacker attacks are increasingly specific and detailed, and partly to the increase in open source programs and, therefore, when one system is attacked, the others follow in a cascade.
Another reason would be the increased presence of IoT services set up without adequate security: it is estimated that there will be more than 20 billion IoT devices connected to the Internet in 2020.
The development of deep fakes also plays an important role, and Bitdefender predicts that the techniques will improve in the new year: for example, audio calls made with this system have already been used in 2019 for some scams, stealing $243,000 from a German energy company.
Even the presidential elections that will be held next year in the States could give rise to fake news and scams.
2020 predictions for fintech services
The report also states that the biggest victims of cyber attacks will be fintech startups, which are often vulnerable to phishing attacks due to outdated commercial software and websites that fail major PCI DSS compliance tests, while app backends have privacy issues or serious configuration errors related to encryption.
“In 2019, we already found data breaches in the fintech industry (victims include Fortune 500 companies) that occurred because personal data was improperly stored (e.g. in log files), or because of weak authentication procedures that allowed attackers to reset passwords via online customer support, or by inadvertently exposing internal documents in public areas”.
Having said that, it seems that the cryptocurrency sector is in contrast with the trend: malware attacks related to illegal crypto mining are decreasing, in part because the weekly cost of cybersecurity has increased by 34%, with an increase in the number of employees in the sector, with an average annual cost of 600 thousand euros.
