The IT industry had its share of joy and innovations in the year 2018. We saw new technologies coming up, industries trying to explore AI and blockchain, and neutral networks dominated the scene. These technologies tried to make way into other sectors or industries and business, allowing the user to have a hands-on disruption and innovation.
Though the industry tried to experiment with all the latest technologies, this was not without risk. New technologies have been always a way ahead of security, and it had its built-in security. Blockchain came up with new ideas, but it was not prone to high-profile hacks, and vulnerabilities. It was open to potential attack, even though it kept upgrading periodically.
The IT security companies have been always on their toes as the cybercriminals were a step ahead, and they would emerge with new vulnerabilities daily. The IT users were always on the lookout for new tools to keep their network safe.
Celu Ramasamy, CEO of Blockgenic quotes few trends in 2019 as follows.
1.) Predictive cyber protection with AI.
Analytics has become a prominent part of the most organizations’ technology infrastructure. Advances in predictive analytics and AI mean that organizations are more capable than ever before at diagnosing and understanding their security in real-time. For instance, the field of fraud prevention and anti-money laundering has received a massive boost. As GigaSpaces VP of Product Yoav Einav points out, “machine learning and deep learning models can determine which transactions are most likely to be fraudulent automatically and efficiently, with fewer false positives.”
For financial services providers, banks, and other businesses, the ability to understand patterns and trends that could indicate fraud is vital. More importantly, the capability of having this information in real-time makes it easier to spot and detect fraud. As AI and machine learning continue to improve in 2019 and beyond, predictive cyber protection will become a norm, not an exception.
2.) Self-Evaluating applications.
In addition to detecting external threats, AI and machine learning will continue to play an important role in helping applications protect themselves. For human operators, it is not always easy to detect small vulnerabilities in massive networks, leaving some areas inevitably exposed and without real protection. Automation has been already a vital trend in tech, but its combination with AI has given it new wings to spread into different areas. One of the biggest new movements in the upcoming year will be the rise of runtime application self-protection (RASP), which will be able to detect problems without human intervention.
3.) The Authentication Revolution.
For one, Identity-as-a-service (IDaaS) are becoming popular and removing the need for passwords. Even though the information we store online continuously grows larger, the tools we use to keep that data safe remain obsolete.
More recently biometric verification, 2-factor authentication, and other methods have started replacing passwords, but 2019 and beyond should be a stepping stone for a new change.
Even technology like blockchain offers a significant upgrade in verifying and authenticating users thanks to robust, transparent protocols that remove the need for obsolete and unsafe passwords.
4.) Data security governance.
The Data has been in the news several times in 2018, mostly in a negative light. This year has already seen several high-profile security breaches, and not even companies like Facebook are safe from attack. Moreover, the speed at which data is generated, stored, and shared has increased exponentially. In this new unexplored environment, understanding the best practices for governing data and ensuring its security is paramount to safety.
As these issues continue, companies are going to continue re-evaluating their data security governance. Areas like big data governance and cloud governance will become larger issues as organizations continue to embrace these new fields. As technologies expand, data security governance will evolve to keep up with changing patterns.
5.) BYOD an adding security challenges.
BYOD (bring your own device) is one of the most popular trends, as it reduces corporate costs, makes remote working easier. However, accounting for every user’s security standard is a nightmare. Most workers do not keep the high bar set by corporate regulations and can create serious vulnerabilities for the most secure networks.
We will see an intersection of rising popularity in BYOD policies. Whether it be through verification systems that lock sensitive data through smarter and more secure networks, the technology is here to stay, and security will have to keep pace.