Cybersecurity Trends: Until a few years ago, security teams focused on improving the end-user experience with essential controls for access management, identity management, user provisioning, and a few others.
Over time, these controls became insufficient, especially with the passage of compliance laws that every organization must comply with.
Firewall audits, anti-malware solutions, core security controls, log management, access analytics, endpoint security, and more have become part of the cybersecurity process. Gradually, as the complexity of threats increased, cyber protection and defense became critical components of organizations. More than that: a crucial component in constant evolution.
Therefore, those who want to stay protected need to be aware year after year of the news in the world of cybersecurity, new threats, and the most advanced tools to protect against them. Below, we’ve summarized what happened in 2021 and what cybersecurity trends you can expect in the year ahead!
The Current State Of Cybersecurity
The advent of new technologies such as artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), robotic process automation (RPA), cloud computing, and low and no-code platforms are changing how organizations deliver their offerings. At the same time, cybercriminals are taking advantage of technological advances to launch sophisticated attacks on businesses. They successfully inject advanced ransomware, bots, and phishing technologies into private networks through corporate applications and the internet.
Due to the pandemic, companies are increasingly shifting to remote work models. Business partners, suppliers, employees, and customers are accessing business information and applications on personal devices. The expanding threat landscape makes it easier for hackers and cybercriminals to plan and execute attacks. It’s time for companies to invest smartly in protecting their IT assets and infrastructure.
Key cybersecurity Challenges
Companies have deployed firewalls, antivirus protection, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), proxy servers, and various other security tools to protect their applications and data. They have set up security operations centers (SOCs) to deal with the complex and ever-evolving threat landscape. However, they still fall short and struggle to cope with specific challenges. See what they are below:
Expanding The Threat Landscape
There is a sharp increase in the installation of malware, ransomware, phishing attacks, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and other cyber attacks. Many organizations struggle to implement 24/7 security monitoring and response to these growing cyber threats.
Skills Shortage
Cybersecurity experts are needed to combat the rise of cyberattacks effectively. Despite this need, the number of unfilled vacancies in the area continues to grow. Cybersecurity teams are overwhelmed and stressed due to a lack of qualified security analysts, architects, cybersecurity engineers, and cloud application testing professionals.
Regulatory Compliance
Many application development teams have experience in code development but not code security. Full compliance with IT security standards is imperative. However, organizations find it challenging to secure their code at every stage and maintain compliance.
What Are The Cybersecurity Trends For 2022?
Cyber attacks have affected the company’s reputation and revenue. Therefore, promoting a safety culture and embedding it in every process, project, and application is essential. The c-suite and teams responsible for protecting the organization’s assets must be aware of cybersecurity trends and work to maintain the security of their networks.
Increase In Social Engineering Attacks
Cybercriminals are exploiting the COVID-19 crisis and sending phishing emails with topics about the pandemic that seems legitimate. This trend will become more advanced. Cybercriminals will use current emergencies, news, and directions to lure victims into clicking dangerous links or to gain access to critical and confidential information. They will create a sense of urgency or use personal data as bait.
Alert employees can help protect your devices and organization from such attacks. A combination of network detection and response (NDR) and security information and event management (SIEM) technologies will help companies detect the ingress and source of malware.
Focus On Cloud Vulnerabilities
Cybercriminals will invest more effort toward cloud-based infrastructure. Consequently, companies will also need to work harder to protect these assets. They must update their cybersecurity systems, establish a patch policy, and run vulnerability scans regularly.
A strong vulnerability management program focused on fighting known and unknown attack vectors will be helpful. Organizations will increasingly adopt the principle of least privilege and multi-factor authentication when granting user access to corporate assets.
Increased Adoption Of The Zero-Trust Network
Organizations began to see value in the Zero-Trust Network Access (ZTNA) approach. This helps ensure that security is consistently strong across the network. With ZTNA, companies will ensure that the identity of every person and device trying to access their network and assets is verified.
Organizations can protect their data and resources from external and internal threats with the correct data classification, 24/7 monitoring, robust security controls, and rapid incident resolution.
Upgrade To 5G And IoT Security
Most of these connected devices are not sufficiently protected, and malicious actors will continue to exploit their security vulnerabilities. As IoT network hacking becomes common, there should also be an update to threat detection and response tools to combat risks and attacks.