Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2022. Read them in this 14th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Security Teams Will Bolster Cloud Security, Better Manage Assets and Strengthen C-Suite Relations
By Gaurav Banga, CEO of Balbix
If the last year has proven one thing, it is that organizations are ill-equipped to stay secure in the age of ransomware. With more than 1000 ransom attacks in the first half of 2021 costing an average of $1.85 Million per attack, security teams have been on-edge looking for solutions to keep their organizations secure. However, deprioritization and a failure to correlate cyber risk to business outcomes have left IT teams with tight budgets, reduced resources and a host of new challenges.
In a recent survey from ESG, 80% of security professionals say their organizations will increase their spend on security posture. With an increase in budget, security teams can modernize their practices. The following three emerging security trends will be key for staying ahead of bad actors, reducing risk and spending dollars smartly in the next year.
1) Cyber Risk Quantification
As a security leader, time and time again I have heard security professionals say the biggest challenge in their careers is communicating security outcomes in business terms. CEOs and CFOs don’t understand what it means or why it matters when we say the mean time to patch is 120 days, or that the company only has 60% visibility into its assets. The C-Suite speaks in business terms; how much money is saved by patching sooner? How much risk are we carrying and what is the cost of it?
Quantifying risk, as well as other cybersecurity metrics in real and understandable business terms will become a common practice. Cybersecurity requires buy-in at every level of the organization starting at the top. Without the C-Suite’s buy-in budgets will never accurately reflect the needs of the organization and security will remain a side project.
2) Cloud Posture Management
In 2020 we saw massive cloud migration as organizations sought to stay connected while working from anywhere. Yet, as organizations set their sights on building for the cloud, security stalled, leaving many unprepared for the risks inherent with moving to the cloud.
While we have seen great progress in cloud security, from centralized visibility and threat intelligence feeds to automation and native integration, adopting these crucial functions is often not a priority for organizations. For organizations to thrive in cloud-based environments, implementing additional posture management tools specifically for the cloud will become imperative.
3) Asset Inventory and Management
It’s no surprise that increasingly digital businesses adopt more technologies and devices. In recent years, we have seen a stark increase in BYOD, blending personal and professional life, a proliferation of IoT devices and more. Altogether, this growth has created a mess of assets that need to be accounted for, maintained and patched. But the challenge then becomes, how do security teams manage so many devices.
For security teams to keep up with this they must implement automated asset discovery and security management tools. Manually logging and tracking individual devices connected to the network is no longer feasible. By implementing asset management and security tools, companies can quickly and efficiently identify risks across all devices and swiftly secure them, resulting in increased productivity from security teams and reduced risk across the organization.
Transitioning to 2022
Overall, 2021 was a year of change. A year where we saw cyberattacks make the headlines of every news outlet, where the government acted on issues impacting both the public and private sectors and did so with swift action.
Through proper communication and investment from senior leaders, security teams can make significant changes in their organizations. Over the next year we will see greater investment in risk quantification, making it easier for security teams to explain cybersecurity to leadership; cloud management, unifying cloud and on-premises security; and automated asset inventory and management, helping companies identify and secure all of their network assets.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gaurav Banga is the Founder and CEO of Balbix and serves on the boards of several companies. Before Balbix, Gaurav was the Co-founder & CEO of Bromium and led the company from inception for over 5 years. Earlier in his career, he served in various executive roles at Phoenix Technologies and Intellisync Corporation, and was Co-founder and CEO of PDAapps, acquired by Intellisync in 2005. Dr. Banga started his industry career at NetApp. Gaurav has a PhD in CS from Rice University, and a B.Tech. in CS from IIT Delhi. He is a prolific inventor with over 70 patents.
