Pandemic, lockdowns, business closures, bankruptcies, remote work, phishing attacks. Phew! We have already gone through a lot in 2020. Coronavirus has forced businesses to embrace remote work, which has accelerated the work from home trends. With most of the workforce working from home, they are no longer protected by the corporate firewall or other enterprise security systems.

This gives cybercriminals an easy target to hit, an opportunity they have long been waiting for. That is why we see an uptick in the number of social engineering attacks, account takeovers, data breaches and business email compromises. Wondering what the cybersecurity landscape might look like in 2021? You are at the right place.

In this article, you will learn about seven cybersecurity trends in 2021 you can not ignore.

Top Cybersecurity Trends For 2021

Here are seven cybersecurity trends that you should keep an eye on in 2021.

1. Remote Work Trend Will Continue
2. Exponential Increase in Data Breaches
3. Data Classification will not be enough anymore
4. Account Takeover will become a real threat
5. The emergence of better, more secure Authentication Methods
6. Phishing Attacks will continue to evolve and become more dangerous
7. Data Privacy will still be the main concern

1.  Remote Work Trend Will Continue

If you think that remote work trends will die when the pandemic goes away, then you might be wrong. Gartner’s research shows that remote work is here to stay. According to a report by Stanford University, 42% of the workforce in the US is working from home full time. 26% of essential service workers are still working in office premises.

Businesses that already have a remote work policy are fine, but if your business does not have one, you should immediately create a formal work from home policy. Organizations must use the right tools to ensure that their data stays safe when accessed remotely. Educate your remote workers and increase employee awareness, so they do not fall into the trap of phishing attacks. The more aware your employees are, the less likely they are to click on malicious links and download malicious files.

2.  Exponential Increase in Data Breaches

According to the cost of data breach report 2020, an average data breach costs a business $3.86 million. What is more, businesses have lost $1.55 million due to data breaches. Businesses that allow full access to company data are more likely to experience a data breach as compared to businesses that limit data access. That is why it is important for businesses to give employees access to the required data for the job. This allows them to reduce the risk of accidental and malicious data loss.

3.  Data Classification Will Not Be Enough Anymore

Just because you have classified your data into different categories does not mean that you are safe. Research shows that classifying data is not enough to prevent data breaches and limit data access. In fact, 62% of companies are still offering their employees access to data that they do not need. These are the companies that are more likely to experience a data breach. If you really want to protect your data, you need to implement data access controls. Establish secure user authentication mechanisms to prevent unauthorized data access.

4.  Account takeover Will Become a Real Threat

With businesses forced to close their doors due to COVID-19, customers have no choice but to order products online. This has led to an exponential increase in E-commerce sales. This increased reliance on online shopping led to a growing number of account takeovers. TransUnion research showed a whopping 347% increase in account takeovers targeting retail customers from 2018 to 2019 and we can expect that number to increase as more and more people continue to shop online.

5.  Emergence of Better, More Secure Authentication Methods

We all know that passwords are not the safest user authentication method anymore. Sadly, most businesses still use them for user authentication. If your business is one of them, you should immediately switch to a safer user authentication method. You can either opt for multi-factor authentication which is being used by most businesses these days or can go the bio-metric route and use fingerprints or face detection to authenticate users.

6.  Phishing Attacks Will Continue to Evolve and Becoming More Dangerous

Hackers are always looking for opportunities and this pandemic provided them that. That is why we saw an increase in the number of COVID-19 linked malicious email campaigns and different types of phishing attacks. Due to a lack of awareness, many employees have already clicked on malicious links sent to them through these shady campaigns and fallen victim to these attacks.

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Until this pandemic goes away, we might see these types of attacks continue to impact businesses. So, how can businesses protect themselves from these types of attacks? Here are some of the ways they can adopt to protect themselves from phishing attacks.

• Check links before clicking
• Verify website security
• Be wary of pop-ups
• Use firewalls and anti-phishing tools
• Increase employee awareness

7.  Data Privacy Will Still Be the Main Concern

Businesses not only create a lot of data, but they also collect and store a lot of data. Do not expect that trend to slow down anytime soon. As a company’s digital footprint increases, it will also increase the number of endpoints hackers can target. Businesses will have to invest in endpoint security to protect all these endpoints.

Most businesses are still concerned about data privacy. After enforcement of data privacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), things have improved, but there is still a long way to go. Data privacy concerns will continue to grow as more and more businesses fully adopt the cloud and migrate all their data to the cloud.

Which cybersecurity trends will make the biggest impact in 2021 in your opinion? Feel free to share it with us in the comments section below.