Each year in Q4, the WatchGuard Threat Lab research team puts together a series of predictions about the cybersecurity developments and threats that are most likely to rise to prominence in the upcoming year. In his latest column for Forbes, WatchGuard CTO Corey Nachreiner recapped his top three security predictions for 2020 and what readers need to know to prepare for each.
The first topic Corey covers is the growing security skills gap. Demand for cybersecurity professionals has risen dramatically in the past decade, but the supply of new workers entering the field hasn’t kept up. Some studies have estimated that the skills gap in security is as high as 4 million. While some recent changes in security education and recruiting practices have promise, they aren’t nearly enough to fill this demand, so the Threat Lab predicts that the skills gap will continue to grow in 2020.
This scarcity of infosec professionals will cause businesses to explore alternatives and look for other ways to source the security expertise they need. Here’s an excerpt from Corey’s article discussing how managed service providers are beginning to fill this gap:
“The good news is that more and more managed service providers (MSPs) have taken notice of the opportunity and begun to offer specialized security services. With the availability of both cloud-managed, layered security protections and the managed security service providers (MSSPs) to deliver them, enterprise-grade security has never been as simple, accessible and cost-effective for businesses of all sizes as it is today. In the face of this ongoing security skills shortage, organizations of all types and sizes will engage with MSSPs to outsource their security needs.”
Read Corey’s full article in Forbes to learn more about the WatchGuard Threat Lab’s skills gap prediction, as well as why ransomware will target the cloud and why more states will pass data privacy regulations modeled after GDPR and CCPA in 2020. You can also check out videos for all seven of WatchGuard’s 2020 security predictions here.