The year that will be in cybersecurity

The year that will soon come to an end, 2015, has been a roller coaster ride for the security community. It has seen many incidents of cyber hacking into almost all sectors and industries, from government agencies to large corporations.

A number of security experts offer far more interesting predictions about the security landscape for the year that will be, 2016.

In 2016, there is a great expectation for the growth of cyber insurance. With the persistence of cyber attacks, it only makes sense that enterprises and organizations purchase premiums from cyber insurance providers.

The market also holds a great promise of growth over the coming years, and in 2015 alone it is estimated to increase to 35 percent. Next year, the cyber insurance market’s growth is pegged at 40 percent.

The market will be driven by the demand of big organizations for third party companies that will shoulder the risks of cyber attacks.  Plus, there will be huge incentives expected from insurance companies for clients to embrace the Cybersecurity Framework issued by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Otherwise, those that will not abide will face a penalty.

Security analysts also foresee authentication to grow in consumption as organizations look to secure access to their networks from the intruders. Technologies such as biometric technologies, social login, mobile payment, and multi-factor authentication are seen to drive the authentication market in the coming year, given the weakening of the user name/password-based security method.

According to a study conducted by ESG, four out of 10 organizations implement multi-factor authentication using mobile handsets and more than four out of 10 consent to using social login/consumer-based credentials for identity verification. Therefore, mobile and social login pose a huge market potential in the coming year and beyond.

In the next year, security experts also see an increase in ransomware, a sort of cyber attack that will infect your computer with a malicious encryption tool so that the key to unlocking your PC can be obtained only once you pay for the ransom demanded by the hacker. The growth of ransomware in 2016 will be greatly driven by the fact that ransomware offerings are now available without a charge in cybercrime chat rooms.

There will be a rise in exploit kits as well in addition to Cryptowall and Cryptolocker ransomware. Often, small enterprises and government agencies are the target, with millions in Bitcoins demanded by the cyber criminals. In 2016, security analysts expect the target spectrum to expand into big enterprises.