‘Silver Bullet Thinking,’ Machine Learning Hype, New Names in Security will Dominate 2019 IT Security Landscape, says TITUS 

“I believe we will see many of the same issues that plagued IT security in 2018 continue to challenge organizations in 2019,” said Jim Barkdoll, CEO for TITUS. “The takeaway is that we’re seeing the same problems because organizations continue to apply the same strategies, anticipating a different result. Until we start thinking differently about IT security – and data protection in particular – these strategies will continue to fail.”

With that in mind, TITUS offers the following IT security predictions for 2019:

1)     The Silver Bullet Doesn’t Exist:  Data Protection policies will continue to fail until organizations abandon ‘silver bullet’ thinking

In 2019, organizations will continue to struggle with adopting a successful data protection strategy without a fundamental shift in thinking. While it’s nice and convenient to believe that consolidating security solutions to a single proposal that requires few resources will ‘solve everything,’ the reality is that this approach doesn’t work. Similarly, going ‘all-in’ on a particular technology (i.e. going ‘all in’ on encryption or data loss prevention (DLP) without deploying complementary solutions), still leaves organizations vulnerable to both external attacks and data mishandling at multiple levels. A comprehensive, multi-faceted approach that addresses the work needed to set up and feed realistic policies that meet an organization’s specific needs.

2)     New names will enter the security market…and they aren’t who you’d expect

Organizations of all shapes and sizes will struggle with how to deal with and protect sensitive personal information, however, the problem continues to be particularly pronounced for large, multi-national corporations including Facebook, Google and even Twitter. Though regulations like PCI and GDPR protect elements of personal data, they aren’t all-encompassing, so look for these behemoths to make a move to acquire security firms as a means of addressing this critical challenge.

3)     Machine Learning Hype vs. Reality: The promise will outweigh reality on artificial intelligence and machine learning

Any tech vendor worth its salt will want a piece of this market, so 2019 will yield a flurry of announcements around new AI and/or ML initiatives. That said, it will still take time for this excitement to convert to tangible solutions that will have a positive impact on day-to-day operations.

4)     Regulations, Fines and Consequences…But Good Data Stewardship is on the Horizon

Now that GDPR is fully enforced, the first big fines and consequences will be announced. This will result in two things – a significant bump in organizations developing best practices to ensure regulatory compliance and data safety, as well as more countries and individual states passing similar regulations aimed at keeping data safe.

5)     Cloud migration won’t solve access issues, despite continued adoption

As organizations continue to flock to the cloud to take advantage of its ease of use and access controls, they’ll continue to see the same security issues they encountered on-premises. Why? Because without understanding the value of their data and enacting measures to safeguard their most critical information, the same security issues will exist, no matter where the data lies. Though cloud achieves a considerable number of productivity and user convenience goals, it cannot solve data protection challenges in and of itself.

6)     Retail Sector is a Target: The next major retail breach is looming

Though regulations like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS or PCI for short) safeguard specific pieces of personal information, the retail industry will continue to lag behind other markets (financial services, healthcare) when it comes to pervasive regulations that adequately safeguard personal information. It’s been just over five years since the landmark Target data breach, which many believed would spur significant retail security measures. To date few have been enacted.

7)     Third Party Orchestrators Will Close the Security Skills Gap

One of the key reasons organizations adopt a more reactive approach to security is due to a shortage of skilled security workers. 2019 will see that shortage continue, however, a new class of organization will rise to address this gap – orchestrators. These independent specialists assist organizations in tying together their existing security investments and solutions to realize a truly end-to-end security solution. These orchestrators will see challenges from big vendors looking to capitalize on this trend, however, as those vendors often offer only proprietary solutions, there will continue to be room for these independent firms.