Businesses are hit by Cyberattacks every day. Cybersecurity teams are flooded with alerts 24/7. Since the beginning of the pandemic last year, organizations experienced more than 25 percent increase in cyber threats as per Cisco’s Future of Secure Remote Work Report.

Remote working risks – Home offices are not as secure as centralized offices, which has more secure firewalls, routers, and access management run by IT security teams.

Internet of Things (IoT) – As per estimates, by 2026, there will be 64 billion IoT devices installed around the world. As it is harder to employ firewalls, antivirus, and security applications to safeguard them, they will serve as potential entry points for malicious actors.

Ransomware – As per estimates there are over 120 different families of ransomware. Hackers have become proficient at hiding malicious code.

Technology evolution will shape the new cybersecurity environment. Here are few trends to watch out for in the future.

Cloud Threats

Cloud computing has been around for some time. According to IDC (International Data Corporation), the global cloud services market is projected to reach $1 trillion in 2024. This growth of Cloud is not just a trend but also potentially a concerning area which you must pay attention to. Rapid cloud migration is bringing in a whole host of new security threats, challenges as well as opportunities.

Cloud based security threats are emerging based on things like –

· Misconfigured cloud storage

· Reduced visibility and control

· Incomplete data deletion

· Vulnerable cloud-apps

It is important to have the right kind of access control in place for your cloud storage, failing which, the bad guys get a chance to peep into your data. Outsourcing the management of the traditional on-premises infrastructure to cloud service providers involves more risk. As more and more people get on-boarded to the platforms there arises potentially more issues and concerns.

Integration of AI with Cybersecurity

Merging of AI and cybersecurity is driving huge growth in the sector and provide huge benefits from an information management and IT security perspective. AI in cybersecurity is projected to grow from $8.8 billion in 2019 to $38.2 billion by 2026 according to studies.

AI integration helps to –

· Analyze risk data from structured and unstructured resources

· Provide threat intelligence

· Quickly make critical decisions & respond to remediate threats

AI and Machine learning as well as business intelligence capabilities such as data visualization are used to manage huge volumes of information over long periods of time to understand trends. AI can provide threat intelligence allowing you to see the patterns in emerging data flows and activity on your networks. This enables the security teams to respond in real time to threats and remediate them.

Extended Detection and Response

Extended detection and response (XDR) is “a SaaS-based, vendor-specific, security threat detection and incident response tool that natively integrates multiple security products into a cohesive security operations system that unifies all licensed components”, according to Gartner.

Features of XDR –

· Collect/Correlate data

· Analyze, prioritize, hunt, & remediate threats to prevent security breaches

· Provides unified visibility across multiple attack vectors

XDR enables visibility and context into advanced threats that are streaming through your systems. Security breaches can be prevented proactively. It also enables you to react to threats in real time and to prevent them from getting out of hand and causing kinds of global data breaches that companies are wrestling with every day.

Data Privacy and Third Party SCRM

· Data privacy impacts all aspects of an organization

· Regulatory compliance issues are multiplying across the local, regional, federal, and international landscapes

SCRM or Supply Chain Risk Management, is the implementation of strategies to manage both everyday and exceptional risks along the supply chain based on continuous risk assessment.

The impact of data management and data privacy across all aspects of an organization is becoming amplified more and more due to regulatory compliance. You not just need to be compliant but ensure downstream compliance. The problem is when you give external actors access to your systems, and they fail to behave appropriately in line with your expectations of regulation and compliance. You need to ensure that they will not transfer risk into your organization

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

SASE is the convergence of WAN (Wide Area Network) and network security services like CASB (Cloud Access Security Brokers), FWaaS (Firewall as a Service) & Zero Trust, into a single, cloud delivered service model.

This is all about bringing security right to the edge of your cloud infrastructure and your service provisioning and making remote access and cloud-based services as tightly controlled and secured as it could be.

According to Gartner, 40% of businesses are looking to adopt or implement SASE by 2024.

Keeping up with evolving threats

Keeping up with the current trends is important and that can be a real challenge in cybersecurity. It is like a cat and mouse game between the attackers and the defenders where they’re always changing the tools, techniques, and procedures to get ahead of one another.

· Establish a workflow – This, of course, can be very challenging depending on the size of your organization. A workflow can help you and your team to address the issue as they are coming on the fly.

· Establish strong information gathering process – It is a lot better to have a dedicated threat intelligence team in your organization. It is important however to keep up to date with the latest information pertaining to cybersecurity.

· Involve other people – It helps in bringing down the overall workload and gives more people skills and awareness. It provides actionable and solid insights.

Implementing changes and keeping your organization perform like a well-oiled machine keeps your organization secure over the long haul.