If we take some time to look back to 2020, the primary theme of that period was disruption. Although, business leaders are accustomed to some level of change, the way COVID-19 burst into the scene and influenced things, was something that could never have been predicted. The end result is organisations having to change and adapt to a situation they thought would never happen.
Any and all organisations should strive to be resilient enough to be able to withstand a wide variety of disruptions and changes, whether it be natural disaster or technology related. Taking a moment to look at the cybersecurity scene, we can anticipate that technology will continue to evolve, with these new changes altering and shaping the environment for the next couple of years. If an organisation accepts these changes before they occur, it can help set them apart from their competition, giving them that strategic advantage.
So, what are the trends for the cybersecurity sector this year, and several years into the future?
1. Distributed Cloud
Distributed cloud has been named as the future of cloud. Organisations that don’t feel comfortable migrating over to the public cloud model, tend to go with a combination of both public and private cloud computing solutions. A hybrid cloud is able to alter the value proposition of your typical public solution. The organisation will maintain responsibility for the private cloud setting, but they are unable to access the full capabilities of what one would expect from a public cloud provider.
A distributed cloud works by providing public cloud solutions to different locations. The public cloud company, essentially operates, maintains and improves the service over time, while executing at the time of need. The distributed cloud helps in the reduction of data costs, low-latency scenarios and also helps a company privacy’s regulations and laws that dictate how data is supposed to be compiled and stored in any geographical location.
2. Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
With the rapid increase in the number of data breaches, many security teams are now looking to gain visibility of enterprise for client data over endpoints, emails, cloud workloads, servers, networks and software.
The XDR or Extended Detection and Response works by providing that momentum as it is capable of automatically collecting data from a number of different endpoints, and then correlating them for faster incident response and threat detection.
As an example, a cyber-incident that caused issues on a network, server or application, can be combined together, correlated and used for content and visibility into the incident itself.
3. The Internet of Things (IoT)
Internet of Things (IoT) and the expansion of it, refers to the interconnected devices other than your standard phone, computer or server that connects to one another over the internet, shares confidential data and create opportunities that cybercriminals can exploit. Some examples of IoT devices include things such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, voice assistant devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home and smart refrigerators.
It is currently predicted that there will be around 64 billion IoT devices all over the world, by the year 2026. With many companies and organisations now embracing the remote workforce landscape, it has and continues to have a positive effect on driving this trend towards rapid growth and popularity. However, compared to your average smartphone or laptop computer, the typical IoT device has much slower processing and storage capabilities, which makes it harder to employ antivirus, firewalls and other security applications which will be needed to sufficiently protect these devices in the future.
4. Rise of Enterprise-level CSOs
In the past couple of years, we’ve witnessed cybersecurity threats, incidents and vulnerabilities, beyond your typical IT systems. Which has pushed many organisations to revamp their current security policies, for both physical and cyber environments.
Cyber incidents like siege-ware attacks targeting management systems infrastructure has led to an increase in OT/OT system vulnerabilities. With GPS spoofing attacks continuing to challenge the physical as well as the cyber landscape. As a result, businesses that have typically relied on a more IT security approach, have shown their inability to effectively deal with the effects of physical security risks specifically.
As a result, many organisations that in the past implemented a cyber-physical system, will now be forced to deploy a CSOs or enterprise-level chief security officer, to effectively collaborate with the different security silos of the organisation.
A CSO will be able to bring IT security, physical security, OT security, supply chain security, and product management security into a more centralised model for governance.
5. Endpoint Management
Dispersed devices and remote workforces that request access to corporate assets, will require the ability to be able to centrally discover, deploy, update and troubleshoot endpoint devices without organisation overhead. It’s very important that these endpoints be properly managed, as in most cases, it’s these endpoints that provide entry points into the corporation network, which cybercriminals are always looking to exploit.
With an endpoint management solution comes another list of benefits to the organisation, such as management endpoint environments, protection to remove workforces, automation of compliance and provisioning and endpoint troubleshooting support made seamless.
6. Hyper Automation
Hyper automation is essentially the process where a business automates as much of the processes within the company as possible. This is done through the use of tools like machine learning, AI, robotic process automation, and other task automation and decision processing tools.
When it comes to any organisation, anything within it that can be automated, should be automated. Most of these organisations are supported through patchwork technologies that are neither connected, learn or optimised. These business processes that have not be streamlined, create extensive and expensive problems for the organisation down the line. Thus, the key to operational resilience and efficiency for any organisation is hyper automation.
Conclusion
When it comes to cybersecurity, one thing that is consistent, is trends. As they continuously emerge, organisations are thus forced to adapt to these new IT security postures. The primary objective is to keep the business secure. However, for this to happen, they must be more flexible, nimble, and more willing to collaborate, as they work to secure all critical company assets.
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