Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2016. Read them in this 8th Annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Sanjay Beri, CEO, Netskope
Three Trends Shaping Cloud Security in 2016
Today’s security landscape is constantly changing, and 2015 saw some of the most high-profile data breaches yet. There’s also been a forecasted jump in the global cybersecurity market, from $106.32 billion in 2015 to $170.21 billion by 2020.
Meanwhile, we’re seeing signs of a shift in the way organizations and security leaders have approached developing security for the cloud. According to an IBM study of nearly 150 CISOs, almost half expect a major cloud provider to experience a security breach. As cyber criminals continue to develop more complex methods to infiltrate organizations in 2016, security leaders must have a clear understanding of how to adapt and proactively respond.
Here are the three trends shaping the security landscape that organizations should consider as they build security plans for 2016:
Global regulation changes how data privacy strategies are managed.
Within weeks of the 2015 decision by the European Union to invalidate the Safe Harbor agreement, cloud computing companies scrambled to develop up new ways for global customers to share data. Case in point — Amazon Web Services said it would open a new cloud services region in the UK next year and Microsoft said it was adding four new Azure data centers in the UK. In 2016, all eyes will focus on the EU General Data Protection Legislation (GDPR). If Safe Harbor is any indication of what’s to come, companies large and small with a stake in Europe will have to take fast action to appeal to global customers. Up to this point, U.S.-based companies and others outside the EU have largely ignored the potential implications of GDPR, but with the European Commission recently ratifying the terms of the legislation, the end of this long process is finally in sight. This means any company with data or customers in Europe will have to comply, which will lead to more investment in security and compliance technologies.
IT goes from troubleshooter to broker. Cloud adoption is growing but hasn’t come close to reaching its peak yet, in part because organizations are still paralyzed by fears around security issues. Critical to cloud adoption in nearly every organization, IT professionals will start marketing themselves less as system fixers and more as innovation brokers in the year ahead. With the assistance of IT, employees will have secure access to productivity tools that allow people to collaborate more efficiently and securely, while also reducing the organization’s overall cloud app usage, save on associated costs, and increase productivity due to reduced redundancies. In turn, IT can help to coach employees on how they can best make use of the cloud.
Machine learning integrates with core IT infrastructure. In 2016, machine learning will evolve from simply discovering anomalous behavior to taking quick action against perceived threats. This will require an integration with machine learning capabilities and core IT infrastructure to automatically detect abnormal behavior, enforce policies and shut down cyberattacks. With more than 60 percent of today’s businesses using the cloud for performing IT-related operations, organizations need to monitor for suspicious activity in their networks and act fast once they see it. In the year ahead, organizations will finally realize the vision of a 360-degree view into their cloud ecosystem to enforce cloud app usage policies with the assistance of machine learning.
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About the Author
Sanjay Beri brings nearly two decades of innovation, experience, and success in networking and security technology, and a unique business sense, to his role as founder and CEO of Netskope. He has held leadership positions at Juniper Networks, Ingrian Networks, McAfee and numerous other companies.
