Cybersecurity-COVID-19 – Photonics year 2020 in retrospect

Gartner’s latest Information Security and Risk Management forecast predicts the market will achieve an 8.3% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) growth rate from 2019 through 2024, reaching $211.4 billion

“According to the 2020 CIRA Cybersecurity Survey, two-thirds of IT workers were required to work from home because of COVID-19. Forced remote work was even more prominent in the public sector, where 78 per cent of IT employees worked at home compared to 60 per cent from private firms.”

This has created the need of enhanced security for the internet. Unfortunately, in the highlights of the report it is listed that “Fewer organizations expect to increase human resources dedicated to cybersecurity in the next 12 months with one-third planning to do so, down from 45% in 2019.”

The stats are showing that:

About three in 10 organizations have seen a spike in the volume of attacks during the pandemic.

One-quarter of organizations experienced a breach of customer and/or employee data last year. Another 38% don’t know if they did or not.

Slightly more than half of organizations implemented new cybersecurity protections directly in response to COVID-19.

Organizations are less likely than in 2019 to inform a regulatory body of a data breach, with only 36% doing so compared to 58% last year.

This paints a grim picture for Cybersecurity even though the Cybersecurity Market report in the International Debt Observatory is forecasting an increased spending in Cybersecurity.

The Cybersecurity report for Private Equity is showing other vulnerabilities.

Photonics can and will play a major role in the Cybersecurity Landscape that according to research is a very crowded space but will address only the technical aspect of security for Cloud and devices.

The Human weak link in Cybersecurity can only be addressed through training.

In the Forbes Article How AI (a Photonics enabled technology) is going to improve Cybersecurity in 2021, 20 Cybersecurity experts are weighing in.

Link: 2020 CIRA Cybersecurity Report | CIRA

Link: Managed Cyber Security Services Market Report Delivering Growth Analysis With Key Trends Of Top Companies (2020-2026) – International Debt Observatory (oid-ido.org)

Link: Cybersecurity 2020: Report for Private Equity | BDO Canada

Link: Top 20 Predictions Of How AI Is Going To Improve Cybersecurity In 2021 (forbes.com)