Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2023.  Read them in this 15th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Managed Services Technology Trends

By Derek Nugent, VP Revenue, Difenda

Consolidation and the notion of doing more with less will characterize security transformation and spending in the new year. Security leaders are worried about operational inefficiencies and the lack of integration within complex security environments. An effective cybersecurity strategy requires adopting a unified approach that targets the people, processes, and technologies-and that is exactly what consolidation aims to do. 

Consolidation offers businesses the opportunity to alleviate the challenges many security teams continue to face as they struggle to manage security operations with complex tooling and integrations. Done right, consolidation can help reduce tooling costs, visibility blind spots and the management burden on stretched security teams. 

Gartner, Inc. found that 75% of organizations were pursuing consolidation in 2022. This number is likely to continue to rise in the new year. 

Hybrid-cloud initiatives

Many businesses still have legacy and on-prem technologies that hold sensitive data. Due to regulatory requirements or increased risk when moving this data, many businesses are looking to integrate hybrid-cloud security environments in 2023. 

Increasing visibility between networks is key to a successful hybrid-cloud initiative, and something few businesses can achieve on their own. This will be a key pain point for customers in the new year. 

A key focus for MSSPs in 2023 will be architecting environments that allow for integration of these technologies into a single interface.

Intensified Information Protection and Data Privacy Regulation

With some key government bodies re-emphasizing the need for privacy and regulation in cybersecurity at the end of 2022, we anticipate many other federal leaders to follow-suit and put forth new data privacy legislation in 2023. Many businesses will continue to struggle with requirements gathering and ensuring their programs are aligned with these new regulatory requirements. 

To aid with these new challenges, governance, risk and compliance, visibility and on-demand reporting will be key drivers for MSSP adoption throughout the year. 

Securing Operational Technology 

Throughout 2022, attacks on OT environments have been on the rise and many businesses still do not have an accurate idea of their OT assets. The need for protecting operational technology and integrating detection and response capabilities with business' IT environments will continue to rise in 2023. 

While protecting OT will be a top priority for many businesses, with the wrong technology, businesses can unwittingly build security gaps or silos within their network. Many of the security breaches we are seeing are coming through IT networks leveraging OT environments. Businesses will need to focus on security integration and consolidation throughout their OT, IoT and IT technology. Visibility will continue to be a key factor when considering managed services and improving internal security management.

## 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Managed security services expert Derek Nugent helps IT and security leaders map and augment SecOps solutions. As a customer success evangelist, Derek has spent the last decade helping organizations across industry verticals identify and solve bespoke security and business use cases.