These days, cybercriminals are ambitious and innovative, with no shortage of tools and resources at their disposal to go after high-stakes targets and execute malicious code — all while flying completely under the radar. To prepare you for what’s ahead, below are five of the top cybersecurity threats you might encounter in 2020.

In 2019 multiple cities, hospitals and educational institutions in the U.S. were crippled by ransomware, including Baltimore, Atlanta, New York City, Regis University in Denver and Monroe University in New York. In the the last 12 months, the infosec community has seen these ransomware operators seriously upping their game (see Ryuk ransomware).

If you're a cybersecurity leader with decades of experience in the industry, I am sure you've helped your organization navigate major security issues related to remote working. Technology has evolved drastically across the decades, with new attack surfaces emerging with each shift.

With more and more endpoints accessing your network remotely, you should expect rapid increases in VPN connections and usage, as well as exponential usage of cloud-based services. There are numerous Splunk apps that can help you increase the monitoring of remote endpoints but let’s showcase Splunk Security Essentials (SSE).

Right, so now the vast majority of your workforce works remotely. Clearly managing all these inbound VPN connections is on top of mind, but what about other vulnerabilities you should be monitoring for? In addition to the ever increasing number of inbound VPN connections, organizations can expect an increase in the use of SaaS-based collaborative software such as Slack, Dropbox, G Suite, and Trello.

Phishing attacks aren’t going away anytime soon. The numbers from Verizon’s 2019 DBIR Report and SANS Institute prove only one thing: When you’ve done all you can to protect against phishing attacks, that means it’s time to do more.

As new technologies emerge, end-to-end application stacks continue to grow, and connected devices become more omnipresent in everyday lives, our society will only become more intrinsically connected across multiple touchpoints. It’s even estimated that in the US alone, there will be roughly 200 billion IoT devices by the end of 2020.

On January 31st, 2020, the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (OUSD A&S) published V1.0 of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). The CMMC builds on DFARS both in terms of required practices and by establishing “trust, but verify” relationships with DoD contractors.

I have often heard it said that "data is the new oil" - it has value if it can be extracted and used correctly. How to extract value and leverage this opportunity - and occasional threat - is what I most commonly hear is keeping today's executives awake at night. From mom-and-pop shops to global enterprises, within nonprofits and the public sector, every leader wants to become data-driven. Unlocking the power of data is, obviously, critical to success.

In so many ways, speed is a security analyst’s best friend. From threat detection to containment to response – the faster you are, the more secure your business will be. It’s exactly why metrics like dwell time, MTTD (mean time to detect) and MTTR (mean time to respond) exist. It’s a barometer for the strength of your organization’s security, and a gauge of success for any good security team.