Security Concerns for Digital Businesses and Online Users in 2020
Why using unsecured services is just as bad as using wrongly implemented 2FA/MFA level security
The use of the internet and online services grows exponentially every year. In 2019, there were at least 4.39 billion internet users (out of the 7.65 billion people worldwide, or above 57%), an increase of 9% concerning 2018. In other words, we are more intertwined than before. Therefore, there is more room for things going wrong in businesses and overall internet regular use. Cyberattacks have increased in proportion to the demand of consumers.
Has security kept toe-to-toe with this tendency? Can we make sure we use secured services?
Multinational companies stay up to date with the latest movement or one step ahead ideally. They invest a lot of money in their security departments, which research how to stay in the safe zone. Although anyone is prone to be hacked eventually, it hardly ever happens with leading corporations. Even Facebook suffered a massive data leak last year that affected millions of users, as explained in this news.
This situation is by no means an isolated scenario; there are other cases of corporate attacks:
- Hackers have exposed vulnerabilities and demanded payments or caused damages worth in trillions only in 2019,
- Massive attacks in core services, such as the one in Arkansas, USA, involving medical centers have forced professionals to use offline alternatives,
- Companies, like Zynga, NordVPN, etc. and state services, have suffered from breaches.
So, if large corporations are compromised from time to time, is there any hope for the medium-and-small digital business? Well, yes, although it may not be easy to make it happen.
What Should We Expect in this Decade?
Unfortunately, in 2020, the forecasts are no better. It is estimated that companies will have spent around $10 billion only on cybersecurity by 2027. Moreover, nowadays, more new devices add up to security concerns. The Internet of Things (IoT) opens the room for potential flaws or backdoors. Counting malicious software that makes it to the mobile app stores or is hidden on the website, there is a lot to be wary about these days.
You don’t click on a banner and expect the best on the internet anymore, do you?
Long gone are those days when you were protected by just using ad-blocking software. To be sure, you need firewalls, but also education. The right habits are always reliable.
Tight Deadlines and Agile Don’t Help
Currently, development has become a more versatile process. Typically, a dev team is not always centralized anymore but spread within a few locations. Change tracking tools like GitHub make it possible for more seasoned teams to be all over the globe and still make a great product. The weakest link on this process tends to be the resources that are dedicated, and above all, impossible deadlines.
Rush is never good when you need to be bulletproof. We usually estimate the time to create an MVP or a prototype correctly. Still, testing and working on feedback has its own pace according to each project, its user base, integrations, and a rather long, etc. But there is a catch; whenever you make a product design plan, if you can save time, you can cut down deadlines here and there.
You cannot go live without a fancy button, but you can do without much testing — which can be just madness.
On one side, to fit in project management processes, the development is often rushed with tight deadlines. What’s more, using third-party software/hardware to provide features and remote connections may leave products vulnerable.
Some potential drawbacks of accelerated dev processes based on the agile methodology are the following:
- Lack of feedback with real users and significant use cases,
- An inexperienced team can easily miscalculate the resources (time and material) needed for some features/projects/modifications, etc.,
- Side effects: no thorough documentation, tracking out of sync, excess of dedicated time due to constant communications, etc.
In 2020, we will witness how cybercrime becomes more dangerous and sophisticated than before. These are some of the most concerning techniques for digital fraud on the internet:
- Cyber attackers can outpace incomplete or hurried patches,
- Cybercriminals make use of decentralized blockchain platforms for untraceable transactions,
- Banking systems have become a primary target due to open banking and ATM malware spread,
- Deep fakes, digital impersonation of people, maybe the next frontier for corporate fraud.
At BidiPass, we believe that security is the number one priority to build a robust ecosystem. Service providers and customers require a high-level monitorization of their activity with a seamless UX. To make the process trustless and transparent, we implement our solution on top of the Ethereum blockchain. You can also test our technology without much hassle, take a look at this guide to get started.
Learn More About BidiPass
You can read about our native token, BidiPass (BDP), available on exchanges on this site. Learn more about BidiPass in this previous post.
Written by César Patiño, PR Manager at BidiPass.
