Cybersecurity affects every single economic sector out there. We’ve seen ransomware hit Hollywood studios, energy companies, and governments.

We’ve seen major thefts from cryptocurrency companies, and the scams on regular consumers are accelerating as well.

As you can see above, the most vulnerable sector that’s at play now is SMBs, which are small and medium-sized businesses. These are companies that are running tight budgets, and their cybersecurity spend is usually not the top priority, but using tech to open their markets is exposing them to even more risk.

The fact is, the more we lean on technology, the more vulnerable we are to alerting a Black Hat to our presence.

Also, because public and private data is more accessible due to hacks of large databases and stealth hacks that are only discovered months or years afterwards, the dark web is now a shopping mall of data and hacks-for-hire.

This year, these are the most “popular” ones that businesses, governments, and individuals are most vulnerable to:

As with all MegaTrends there are direct and indirect plays.

For example, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is constantly under threat of hackers due to its diverse global exposure across governments, consumers, and businesses. It has become a leading cybersecurity company simply as a matter business, although it doesn’t see its cybersecurity as a retail product. IBM (NYSE:IBM) also falls into this category.

But it’s still on the cutting edge and its cloud business as well as its growing AI business will benefit.

Also on the indirect side will be chipmakers like NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM), and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD). Their AI-driven future will be key to cybersecurity companies ability to stay ahead of cyber criminals.

But the leading direct plays in cybersecurity would certainly have to be CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW), Okta (NASDAQ: OKTA), and Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT).