By Kowsik Guruswamy, Chief Technology Officer, Menlo Security

A Glimpse Into the Crystal Ball - Forecasting Trends for 2020

From countless Facebook scandals and GDPR fines to the Capital One breach and an explosion in ransomware attacks on Louisiana, Atlanta, Baltimore and many more, 2019 was truly one for the books, and the coming year is likely to be even more chaotic and costly. So what can security teams expect to see in 2020 and how can they best respond to evolving threats and trends? Here are my thoughts:

From "Buzzword" to Mainstream Adoption: Making the Case for Zero Trust

In 2020, we will move beyond the buzzword and see clearer definitions of what zero trust really means for enterprises and individuals. What is currently missing is a zero trust reference architecture -- to assume everything is bad -- and I foresee truer definitions coming to fruition for deploying something meaningful. With the perimeter dissolving and people working from multiple environments, zero trust will move more into the mainstream as everyone begins to buy into the vision.

Blurred Lines: Corporate and Personal Identity Will Converge

With the rise of bring your own device (BYOD) culture in the workplace and the access to personal accounts, corporate and personal identities have started to become one and the same. Context is a large part of redefining identity, with who you are being based on a number of factors rather than just a username and password. As we continue to shift toward using biometrics as a primary mode of authentication, even for work devices, those lines will continue to blur even further.

A Meteoric Rise: Cloud Security Adoption to Accelerate in 2020

The coming year will usher in an even greater adoption of cloud security, with a material change in attitude and organizations fully embracing the cloud. As organizations increasingly access enterprise applications like Box, Salesforce, etc., it's no longer practical for them to VPN back to the stack to remain secure while accessing these services in the cloud. With this move to the cloud comes countless security risks. Not only will we see more companies jump on the bandwagon and shift their applications and operations to the cloud, but we will also see the security stack move to the cloud and more resources dedicated to securing the cloud, such as cloud councils. 

With zero trust moving to the mainstream, enterprises and employees learning to coexist in cyberspace and more organizations moving to the cloud, 2020 is poised to be a transformative year. Join me as I raise a glass to the close of one decade and the beginning of another!

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About the Author

Kowsik Guruswamy is CTO of Menlo Security. Previously, he was co-­founder and CTO at Mu Dynamics, which pioneered a new way to analyze networked products for security vulnerabilities. Prior to Mu, he was a distinguished engineer at Juniper Networks. Kowsik joined Juniper via the NetScreen/OneSecure acquisition where he designed and implemented the industry's first IPS. He has more than 15+ years of experience in diverse technologies like security, cloud, data visualization, and computer graphics. Kowsik has 18 issued patents and holds an MSCS from University of Louisiana.