Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2022. Read them in this 14th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Insiders May Now Be Outsiders
By Eric Kedrosky, CISO, Sonrai Security
2021 has been an impactful year for cloud security and specifically, identity issues. The shift to the cloud has fundamentally changed the way we approach security.
The security paradigm has changed and it’s critical for companies to update their strategies accordingly and to not rely on legacy approaches, or legacy technology. Moving into 2022, excessive access will run rampant in the post-Covid cloud. Organizations not only need to inventory their people and non-people identities, but they also need to continuously monitor them.
Companies that fail to mature their security with this paradigm shift will be left picking up the pieces after a breach.
As the end of 2021 is here, it is time to prepare for the year ahead and below are a few transformative developments we can expect in 2022.
1. Insiders may now be outsiders
Breaches due to insider threats will be exacerbated by increased access due to over-provisioning during the pandemic as companies go back to the office post-COVID. But the insiders may be outsiders. Bad actors know how to exploit access vulnerabilities and enterprises lack visibility to detect the vulnerabilities.
2. Reskilling and upskilling are badly needed
Hackers, bad actors, and certain insiders are more skilled at cloud security than enterprise security teams. The cloud skills gap will continue in 2022 and put a spotlight on enterprise vulnerabilities as more are held for ransom, and as more Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is sold on the open market.
3. Turnover in security staffing will be rampant
The ever-increasing cloud security skills gap, combined with the “Great Resignation” and a need for corporations to show more revenue per head will result in massive churn in security staffing.
The need for cloud-native, skilled-up security teams will push legacy techdevotees out to pasture, introducing skill gaps and risk along with reward.
4. Azure and GCP close the gap with AWS in the cloud
Azure and Google are closing the gap on AWS and will accelerate that further in 2022 based on an increase in players that are entering the game and leveling the playing field, such as Alibaba, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and others. Azure and Google Cloud’s cloud-native development and accelerated cloud migration among its customers has been boosted by its focus on industry-specific solutions, machine learning, analytics, and data management.
5. Top PaaS and IaaS will be hit with Zero-Day exploits
Top public cloud players have greatly expanded their attack surfaces with the race to develop and deploy more apps to more people in more regions to drive growth. This has expanded their attack surfaces and security measures may not have kept pace in a way that is sufficient to meet the need. We predict that a major cloud player will suffer a Zero Day attack and that the ramifications for the entire space will be massive in 2022.
6. CSPM becomes a defacto standard for F1000 CISOs
Increased migration to public clouds in combination with a rise in hacks and breaches will drive cloud security posture management (CSPM) into the “check-box” realm for Global 1000 CISOs. Tasked with establishing and maintaining least privilege for their cloud environments, and faced with expertise and staffing shortages, deployment of leading CSPM platforms will become an industry-wide standard though CSPM tools will vary.
7. Identity takes center stage, with CIEM on the rise
Identity and data access complexity are exploding in the public cloud, and there are tens of thousands of pieces of compute, along with an array of interdependencies and inheritances that first-generation security tools miss – as shown by so many data breaches in the cloud. That “identity is the new perimeter” is so often said these days that it’s almost become trite; yet few companies are truly prepared to address it. The need to, as will be evidenced by a rise in hacks and breaches based on exploiting it, will drive Cloud Infrastructure and Entitlement Management (CIEM) to the top of CISO’s list of musthaves.
8. Corporate boards add CISOs
The prominence and impact of hacks and breaches that have increased greatly in recent years will lead to corporate boards of directors in 2022 adding members with demonstrated experience and expertise in both the cloud and security. Like finance and M&A, security is now central to, rather than an afterthought, when developing and executing corporate growth strategies.
9. Third-party attack vectors will be the Achilles’ heel for enterprises
Still challenged to exploit vulnerabilities in the world’s largest and best-defended organizations directly, savvy bad actors will find side entrances through partners and other third parties with too much privileged access to large corporate resources. Moving in under the cover of outside organizations could mean that it takes longer to discover the breaches and that the impacts are therefore more severe.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eric Kedrosky is CISO at Sonrai Security. Eric joined the cloud security software company in February 2020 after 16 years working in the industry. Highlights from his career include working as Director of Security & IT at Verafin, Directory of Information Services & Security at RigNet, and Enterprise Global Xpress (GX) Manager at Inmarsat. Eric graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada with a Bachelor of Engineering with a focus on Computer Systems. He stood out from his fellow students so much that he immediately got hired as a Security Analyst at Nortel. He rose quickly through the company’s ranks and left to pursue an interest in business solutions development with Bluedrop Performance Learning, the first online learning network.
