With their Threat Report 2020 , the experts at Sophos provide a status report on the current threats from cyberspace, while also revealing what will be the biggest threats in 2020. For the report, the experts examined the cyberattacks from the last 12 months and identified five trends: When it comes to ransomware, attackers are increasingly leveraging automated attacks. Unwanted apps are becoming increasingly similar to malware. The app itself or secretly infiltrated adware is used to abuse subscriptions and spy on user behavior. Cloud computing has also moved into the focus of cybercriminals. With the increasing complexity of systems, more and more operating errors and misconfigurations on the part of operators are leaving the door open for attack.

According to Sophos, there was a particularly large volume of attacks in 2019 on security systems that work with machine learning. The researchers were able to show how such systems are tricked. Machine learning can also be abused to generate fake but convincing social engineering content. Automated attacks and undetected access to connected devices and services via the Internet are also on the rise. Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) has been increasingly used as a gateway here.