Our experts predict that many of the trends they’ve been tracking throughout the year—well-researched attacks, SMB breaches and the importance of user education—will continue into 2020. But they’ll be affected by new industry developments such as impending privacy regulations, AI-enabled attacks and attacks targeting developing nations.

Here’s a sampling of the top trends they foresee dominating the headlines in 2020.

“Highly targeted ransomware will likely continue. Next year, we predict, ransom-motivated attackers will more pointedly observe automatic backup solutions and make attempts to remove and alter the backup data or the task itself.” —Eric Klonowski, Manager, Software Development, Webroot

“Phishing will likely also become more targeted as data collected from breaches is incorporated into phishing emails. Things like passwords and recent transactions can go a long way in convincing people the email is legit.” —Grayson Milbourne, Security Intelligence Director, Webroot

“Adversarial attacks against AI-based security products will likely grow in scope and complexity, which will highlight the fact that there are fundamentally two types of AI in cybersecurity: AI which acts like a smarter conventional signature and AI which is built into every facet of an intelligent, cloud-based platform capable of cross-referencing and defending itself against adversarial attacks.” —Joe Jaroch, Senior Director of Cybersecurity Strategy, Webroot

“Businesses are realizing that no matter what they put into protection, attackers are always trying to stay at least one step ahead, so businesses need to have an incident response plan. Educating users against phishing, preventing malware from being accessed over DNS, blocking malware from running, and recovering the system, if necessary, will need to be a focus in 2020 to support the availability and security of corporate and personal data.” —Jamie Zajac, Senior Director of Product Management, Carbonite

“We expect that SMBs will continue to be targets for cybercriminals because–just like the public, education and healthcare sectors–they maintain the same vulnerable environment. They’re low-budget, understaffed and often under-educated on matters of cybersecurity.” —Tyler Moffitt, Senior Threat Research Analyst, Webroot

“Expect to see more attacks against less developed nations. Attacks like this don’t generate revenue; rather, they are meant to disrupt and destroy” —Grayson Milbourne, Security Intelligence Director, Webroot

 “U.S. citizens will step up their demands for privacy in 2020. Privacy legislation in the U.S., which has lagged behind other nations, will be a central issue. I would expect an alternative paid for services that don’t abuse data will emerge. The existing, untrusted purveyors of convenience will try to pivot, but will ultimately lose out heavily. Legislation and technology are starting to converge due to so many abuses of privacy.”.” —George Anderson, Product Marketing Director, Webroot

Staying Safe in the New Year

Don’t let these predictions come true for your clients. Read up on securing your business first and make sure the same protections you put in place for clients are established within your organization.

Practice good cybersecurity hygiene, run frequent and redundant backups, and be sure to cover your clients at the network, endpoint, and user levels.

Ready to start the New Year with a proper cybersecurity stance? Start your free trial now.