We learned a lot of valuable lessons from the hardships of 2020, both in business and personal regards. While the year was certainly challenging, there is a lot to be said about the innovation, resilience and ingenious solutions that people and companies all over the world came up with to cope with a rapidly changing world.
While some changes were temporary, we believe that there are many that are here to stay—namely, the way people exist and interact with one another in the digital world. From an uptick to online shopping and virtual meetings to more nefarious online practices, 2020 changed a lot about how businesses do business, for better or for worse.
Permanent Digital Changes As a Result Of 2020
An increase in online shopping. Convenience has been key since the digital age has begun, but never have we seen that be so apparent than in 2020. Online shopping hit new heights in popularity in nearly every category, and more companies began to implement flexible pickup and delivery options than ever before. Of course, all this shopping means far more data floating around on the web—meaning cybersecurity concerns also ran rampant.
An increase in online security vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, with more online activity comes more online risk—especially when e-commerce and personal data is concerned. About 80% of firms reported seeing an increase in cyberattacks in 2020, which makes it clear that nefarious actors are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities presented by people being thrust into a digital world.
A decrease in IT capacities. We also saw more companies and roles be moved to a remote or hybrid working structure due to safety concerns, which lead to more people navigating company equipment, meeting software and interacting with potentially classified data from their home hubs. This resulted in far more IT tickets being filed and support issues that needed to be resolved, and if staffing did not ramp up to match, this potentially resulted in many IT professionals becoming overwhelmed. Overworked and overburdened employees are the most likely to cut corners, which can lead to serious security issues when the department in question is tasked with security.
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