What Will Cybersecurity (Probably) Look Like in the Near Future?

It isn’t exactly news that businesses of all sizes need to be concerned about cyberthreats - especially since, as time passes, these threats have become more serious and insidious. Up until this point, there have been tried-and-true methods that businesses could leverage to stop these threats, but hackers are very clever when it comes to their attacks. What can a business do?

Fortunately for businesses, there are now solutions that can be used to assist them in keeping their business secured against cyberattacks - and projections that show certain emerging technologies have promise as a weapon against cybercrime.

Let’s go over a few of them.

How Artificial Intelligence Can Benefit Security

One of the greatest weaknesses of the cybersecurity solutions commonly utilized today is the fact that the user still has a role to play. Whether they are responsible for configuring their solution in the first place, or vetting the results that solution provides, the user is a key component of the business’ security strategy.

One of the major problems with this approach is that human beings are inherently fallible. As a result, an error or missed signal could easily contribute to the business’ security being bypassed. Furthermore, today’s security solutions still need to be monitored by a user to ensure all is operating as intended.

In the near future, adopting AI into your security processes can resolve some of these issues. Once the AI has been taught what to look out for, it can keep an eye on your systems much more effectively than a human being could. With the ability to recognize and block threats (and potentially to identify the root of these threats) an artificially intelligent security solution can go beyond defense and delve deeper into prevention.

AI may also become an integral part of a business’ identity and access management processes, potentially replacing the password as an authentication measure. The idea is that - rather than trusting employees to use a different unique and complex password for every account, the user’s behaviors, workplace roles, and common actions would be analyzed. If the system picks up any deviations, an additional form of authentication (like biometrics) would confirm or deny the user’s legitimacy.

Unfortunately, the cost of admission for this level of technology is a very real obstacle for small-to-medium-sized businesses at this time. Having said this, it is entirely possible that this cost of admission could decrease as the technology is adopted more widely.

Why You Need to Keep 5G Connectivity in Mind

On a related note, artificial intelligence promises to advance a wide variety of processes, including the use of 5G and data-intensive tasks.

However, with so many devices connecting to the Internet, there are many more opportunities for cybercriminals to take advantage of sub-par security standards. The capabilities that 5G connections have also needs to be considered. Can you imagine the havoc that could be caused if self-driving cars were suddenly interrupted by an army of malicious bots overtax your network (known as a Distributed Denial of Service attack)? Just think about how many devices are in your business, and how much data they all produce. A hacker’s efforts will become that much harder to detect, concealed in the massive amounts of data produced. Considering that estimates anticipate a self-driving car’s data output each day to equal 3,000 people’s current daily data output, it is no wonder that data overload is a serious security concern.

While there’s still a while before these cybersecurity concerns materialize, there are still plenty of concerns to deal with currently. Zinc can help - learn more by reaching out to us at (713) 979-2090.