By Stephan Berner, Chief Executive Officer, Help AG
2021 has been a year where the region witnessed a series of high-profile breaches, an increase in DDos attacks, an uptick in the frequency of ransomware attacks and several top vulnerabilities. It is evident that organizations must be ready to deal with such high-profile cyber-attacks, threat actors and large-scale malicious incidents more than ever. As work-from-home and hybrid working models are fast becoming the norm and next-generation technologies in cloud and IoT are adopted, we are seeing an ever-evolving need for organizations to level up their security requirements.
To help organizations respond to risks and cyber-attacks of any scale, we’ve identified top cybersecurity trends that will help them navigate the hot topic of embracing a strong mindset and culture of cyber resilience for the effective running of operations.
Service-centric Transformation of the Cybersecurity Space
We envisage that 90% of all cybersecurity requirements will be fulfilled through a service model in the next three years. What spurred the adoption of such service-centric cybersecurity models is simply the rapid acceleration of the same. These days, organizations prefer to partner with specialist managed service providers for their core technology and security needs instead of managing it all in-house. Such service-centric business evolution will become more prominent as businesses move away from CAPEX and adopt efficient OPEX options to optimize their spending. This, in turn, will reduce their TCO so that they can focus on devising a predictive spend plan for their cybersecurity needs.
Increased Investment into Locally Hosted Cybersecurity Solutions
The need for investments into locally hosted cybersecurity solutions and services evolved as a result of accelerating digital transformation requirements, service-centric business propositions and the adoption of cloud in combination with local regulations and requirements around data residency.
We saw significant investment in locally hosted solutions and services, including Security Service Edge (SSE), private access, DDoS protection and security platforms. We’ve also identified hypergrowth in investments into managed cyber defense and OT and IoT security, as well as considerable increase in investments into the IAM/PAM space. There has been a stabilization of investment into security infrastructure such as next-generation firewalls, application security and DNS security after a significant investment increase in 2021.
When it comes to industries and sectors, investments in cybersecurity saw a noticeable increase across the verticals, with a special focus on government, BFSI as well as energy and utilities. On the other hand, aviation, logistics, construction and hospitality verticals continued to have conservative budget spending on cybersecurity.
Moving Towards Cyber Resilience
The rate of digital transformation has accelerated beyond expectations. Unfortunately, this has been accompanied by destructive cyber-attacks, phishing and large-scale malicious threats that impact how quickly and efficiently organizations can move in their digital transformation journey. This demonstrates the pressing need for organizations to incorporate cybersecurity and cyber resilience strategies into the core of organization’s digital transformation strategy.
We see the gradual change in the mindset and culture around cybersecurity, as the shift from cybersecurity to cyber resilience is evitable for a smart and sustainable knowledge economy. With systems more interconnected and dependent than ever, organizations will move towards adopting a comprehensive approach to boost cyber resilience through preventive, detective and responsive methods, as well as a well-structured incident response and recovery plan in place.
Finally, the 2022 technology trends have emerged due to a direct consequence of attack trends. Secure cloud enablement, application security, identity security and Security Service Edge will continue to be top priorities in an increasingly hyperconnected world. As cybersecurity-related trends continue to evolve, organizations and cyber security professionals must continue working together to build and implement excellent cyber resilience to further their digital transformation journey effectively.