Over the last several years, cyberattacks have grown in both frequency and complexity. The current threat landscape of the coming years shows little sign of improving, with threat actors refining their techniques and new vulnerabilities being discovered faster than they can be patched.
It is more important than ever that business owners assess their cybersecurity risk and take steps towards protecting themselves from data breaches and extortion.
Here are some of the cyber security trends that are most likely to affect small businesses and provide some advice on what steps can be taken to offset these cyber threats.
Ransomware Will Continue To Be a Massive Threat
While small businesses may feel safe from this type of attack, hoping to fly under the radar, the reality is that they are often the most vulnerable to attack. This makes sense considering small businesses are typically less prepared to handle these attacks, often lacking a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) or even a dedicated IT team to address security issues in a timely manner.
Lack of preparation often leads to small business owners feeling forced to pay the ransom—the alternative of rebuilding their digital infrastructure from scratch could potentially be a disastrous setback.
Don’t expect your company’s comparatively small size to be protection—everyone is at risk.
Human Error Will Continue to be a Concern
Employees have long been a weak link in IT security, prone to opening infected email attachments, clicking malicious links and other risky behavior. Now, rapid advancements in social engineering are enabling attackers to trick more users into falling for their schemes.
Accordingly, comprehensive auditing of user activity will become even more critical for spotting abnormal behavior in time to prevent serious incidents.
Multifactor Authentication (MFA) Will Rise in Popularity
Password-based authentication’s flaws have been obvious for years—they are either too simple to be secure or too complex to remember. All it takes is a single successful phishing attempt for the accounts to be compromised.
Multifactor authentication works by adding another layer of verification to the login process. This can take many different forms, with one of the most common varieties involving users being asked to confirm a one-time code sent to their cell phone.
Small businesses which aren’t currently taking advantage of 2FA will find that it is easier than ever before to add this important security measure to their accounts.
Building a Security-First Culture
Cybersecurity is often considered a responsibility of IT teams only; however, with an increase in hybrid working environments, it’s becoming more important to raise cyber security awareness and train everyone in the organization to watch out for malicious hackers.
Staying alert protects the entire organization, especially considering the average organization is targeted by hundreds of social engineering attacks in a year.
Automation and Visibility Tools Will Grow in Popularity
Security systems generate an incredible amount of data, which no team can handle in real-time and react to in a timely manner. The cyber threat landscape simply evolves too fast. Moreover, hackers are using automation too!
Analytics, intelligence, and automation are all essential to move from reactive to proactive security and regain control over one’s environment and schedule. Security automation can identify potential threats, assess the event to determine whether it is authentic, and then contain and eliminate the threat.
Cybersecurity automation minimizes alert fatigue by examining alerts, identifying threats, and reducing the effects of attacks.
Increased Demand for Cybersecurity Experts
Businesses will need to be more proactive about cybersecurity going into the new year. Even if you don’t think your business could be a target, cybercriminals don’t discriminate and will even target employees within the organization. Hiring a cybersecurity expert can help you and your employees stay vigilant through cybersecurity awareness training and provide regular security testing to ensure your applications are patched. It’s likely more and more businesses will be investing in managed service providers (MSPs) and Security as a Service (SaaS).
All businesses and individuals have access to tools that can significantly reduce the risk of cyber threats, but you have to be proactive. By acting on these trends and finding solutions for your organization, you can go into the new year with a truly secure business.
Here at Kyber Security, we can help you establish a detailed cyber security plan, security training, and awareness, enact a comprehensive cybersecurity policy, and initiate and maintain a reporting system for cybersecurity events.
Ready to put security first?
