Working from home is here to stay, increased focus on SD-WAN and zero trust -- network predictions for 2021
After 2020 managed to turn most of the world on its head, making predictions for 2021 might seem to be a bit risky. Plenty of industry experts have been doing so, however, which means that it's time for our usual seasonal round ups of what you can expect to see from the technology world next year.
One of the biggest impacts of 2020's pandemic has been on networks as more people than ever have switched to remote work. Let's have a look at how the industry thinks this will play out in 2021.
How secure SD-WAN can improve security and cut costs [Q&A]
Securing enterprise networks has always been a challenge, but 2020 and the shift to remote working has made it even more so.
Fortunately secure SD-WAN technology can help businesses to deal with the new landscape as well as reducing costs and making strong security accessible to more organizations. We spoke to Mike Wood CMO of Versa Networks to find out more.
Fraudulent eCommerce purchase values jump 70 percent over 2019
2020 has been a boom year for eCommerce, with average daily transaction volumes equal to 88 percent of the volume achieved during Black Friday weekend 2019 according to digital trust and safety specialist Sift.
It also finds the average attempted fraudulent purchase value has risen to over $700 from October through November 2020, a 70 percent year-on-year increase compared to the same period in 2019.
How the MITRE Shield can help organizations better address their adversaries [Q&A]
The MITRE ATT&CK framework is now used by many organizations to help them understand and counter threats. Less well known is the latest addition, MITRE Shield.
We spoke to Carolyn Crandall, chief deception officer and CMO at Attivo Networks to find out more about how this can be used along with MITRE ATT&CK to better address adversaries.
Pandemic accelerates moves to the cloud
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major influence on spending and digital transformation plans in 2020 with many businesses speeding up plans to move to the cloud.
A new study from BillingPlatform of 300 CFOs and senior finance executives shows that this trend is likely to continue into 2021. Respondents named their three top priorities as investing in cloud-based technologies (42 percent), identifying ways to drive higher revenue through new products and services (41 percent) and reducing operating costs or capital investments (36 percent).
IBM helps businesses prepare for next generation encryption
IBM Security is launching a new service that allows companies to experiment with fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) -- an emerging technology that allows data to remain encrypted while being processed or analyzed in cloud or third-party environments.
IBM Security Homomorphic Encryption Services provide companies with education, expert support, and a testing environment to develop prototype applications that can take advantage of FHE.
Enabling zero trust for small and medium enterprises [Q&A]
The move towards zero trust has been one of the big security stories of 2020, driven by a switch to remote work, but so far it has been largely the preserve of bigger organizations.
Now though JumpCloud has added Conditional Access policies to its Directory Platform, enabling IT admins to adopt zero trust security from the same cloud platform that they use to manage and securely connect users to IT resources.
New spyware seeks to blackmail Android and iOS users
Researchers at mobile device security company Lookout have uncovered a new strain of spyware targeting iOS and Android users in multiple Asian countries.
Called Goontact, it targets users lured to illicit sites and steals personal information stored on their mobile devices in order to carry out sextortion scams.
New account fraud is down partly thanks to selfies
New account fraud based on ID verification declined by 23.2 percent worldwide, year-on-year in 2020 according to a new report from AI-powered identity verification specialist Jumio.
Although selfie-based fraud rates were five times higher than ID-based fraud, this shows the growing number of stolen ID documents available on the dark web and, more importantly, the growing need to determine if an ID is authentic and belongs to the user.
Software industry turns to crowdsourced security during the pandemic
Among the many things that have changed in 2020 it's proved to be a record year for crowdsourced cybersecurity adoption, according to Bugcrowd.
Enterprises across all industries have been implementing crowdsourced cybersecurity programs to keep up with the evolving threat landscape. Bugcrowd has seen a 50 percent increase in submissions on its platform in the last 12 months, including a 65 percent increase in Priority One (P1) submissions, which refer to the most critical security vulnerabilities.
DDoS attacks up 287 percent as online gaming and gambling become prime targets
A lockdown increase in online gaming activity has inevitably attracted attention from attackers, resulting in nearly 77 percent of cyberattacks targeting the online gaming and gambling industries in Q3 of 2020.
The latest DDoS Threat Report from Nexusguard also reveals a huge 287 percent increase in total DDoS attacks in the third quarter compared to the same period last year.
COVID-19 highlights barriers to zero trust adoption
With many large enterprises using Active Directory (AD) and Azure Active Directory (AAD) to control user permissions and access, this has become one of first places attackers look for weakness.
Add to this an acceleration of digital transformation projects due to the pandemic and more and more companies are looking to implement zero trust to stay secure. But a new report from One Identity suggests this transition may prove challenging.
Millions of medical images openly available online
The analyst team at digital risk protection firm CybelAngel has discovered that more than 45 million medical imaging files, including X-rays and CT scans, are freely accessible on unprotected servers.
The findings are the result of a six-month investigation into Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM), the de facto standard used by healthcare professionals to send and receive medical data.
Sophos launches open AI developments to fight cyberattacks
Cybersecurity company Sophos is announcing four new open artificial intelligence developments with the aim of improving defenses and making the use of AI in cybersecurity more transparent.
Although in other industries it's become common to share AI methodologies and findings, cybersecurity has lagged which doesn't help understanding of how AI can protect against cyberthreats.
Open source vs open core -- the development battle you may never have heard of [Q&A]
There's a battle playing out in the enterprise open source arena right now, but it's one you probably haven't heard about.
It's a clash between pure open source and commercialized open source (or 'open core') versions. While this may be below the radar for anyone not directly involved it has important long-term implications for the industry.
Ian's Bio
Ian spent almost 20 years working with computers before he discovered that writing about them was easier than fixing them. Since then he's written for a number of computer magazines and is a former editor of PC Utilities. Follow him on Mastodon
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