These days, cybercriminals are ambitious and innovative, with no shortage of tools and resources at their disposal to go after high-stakes targets and execute malicious code — all while flying completely under the radar. To prepare you for what’s ahead, below are five of the top cybersecurity threats you might encounter in 2020.

In 2019 multiple cities, hospitals and educational institutions in the U.S. were crippled by ransomware, including Baltimore, Atlanta, New York City, Regis University in Denver and Monroe University in New York. In the the last 12 months, the infosec community has seen these ransomware operators seriously upping their game (see Ryuk ransomware).

If you're a cybersecurity leader with decades of experience in the industry, I am sure you've helped your organization navigate major security issues related to remote working. Technology has evolved drastically across the decades, with new attack surfaces emerging with each shift.

With more and more endpoints accessing your network remotely, you should expect rapid increases in VPN connections and usage, as well as exponential usage of cloud-based services. There are numerous Splunk apps that can help you increase the monitoring of remote endpoints but let’s showcase Splunk Security Essentials (SSE).

Right, so now the vast majority of your workforce works remotely. Clearly managing all these inbound VPN connections is on top of mind, but what about other vulnerabilities you should be monitoring for? In addition to the ever increasing number of inbound VPN connections, organizations can expect an increase in the use of SaaS-based collaborative software such as Slack, Dropbox, G Suite, and Trello.