The cybersecurity threat landscape in 2022 - ThreatAdvice
The last two years have altered the cybersecurity landscape forever, and those alterations have had profound implications for how we utilize technology. Future challenges will be different from those of recent times.
Nevertheless, cybersecurity will remain critical in the years to come. The ever-increasing sophistication of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other advanced technologies means the threats we face will become ever more unpredictable. The future of cybersecurity will be shaped by these and other factors.
What will the cybersecurity landscape be in 2022, and how can your business be prepared for the future?
Ransomware
The Covid-19 epidemic led to a proliferation of collaborative and remote working environments, which are now considered the norm and benefit both businesses and employees alike, favoring flexibility and business continuity.
However, it has also led to an increased risk of cybersecurity threats, including a significant increase in ransomware attacks, and is affecting industries such as healthcare entities, tech firms, manufacturers, and financial institutions, as well as the shipping and transportation sector.
Businesses should consider installing backup recovery tools and data loss prevention (DLP) solutions to reduce the risk of damage in the event of a cyber-attack. It is also vital to encourage employee cyber awareness and mobile device management to safeguard against security breaches, particularly when employees are working in remote or hybrid work environments.
Expanded attack surface
As more companies make the shift to the cloud and adopt advanced technologies to enable business growth and success, this can result in a significantly expanded attack surface. Threat actors have a larger number of access points to exploit and then attempt to gain access to systems, networks, and data.
Advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing have opened up new possibilities for cybercriminals. Large volumes of data and various types of sensitive information, such as personal medical records, are now stored electronically, giving rise to data exfiltration risks. Finally, the emergence of blockchain and other decentralized technologies will most likely lead to the creation of new risk scenarios that were not previously imagined.
Organizations should be aware of this increased risk and invest in data security and protection, such as enforcing data access control and encrypting data to ensure that their businesses and reputations are not damaged as a result of data security breaches.
Data protection
Data is the lifeblood of business today and has become an incredibly valuable asset. The sheer volume of data being created every day is staggering with 70% of the globe’s GDP digitized. The more data we create and use, the more at risk businesses become for cyber-attacks.
Data protection can be achieved by encrypting data, a procedure that protects sensitive data against cyber-attack and helps your organization meet compliance requirements if you employ cutting-edge data encryption technologies.
Cloud security
Cloud computing has become vital to the world’s business continuity in recent times and will continue to be a critical investment for organizations in 2022. Yet the increased dependency on cloud computing has a cost, with security experts predicting attacks on cloud infrastructure will increase.
It's crucial for a firm to shield its cloud services against cyber-attacks. A comprehensive security platform should be used to defend against all kinds of assaults, including networks, cloud services, and endpoints, while managing network policy, identity and access control, and acquiring comprehensive visibility across all aspects. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can be used to automate cybersecurity and real-time data analysis to detect threats.
Internet of Things (IoT)
An IoT network is composed of devices that exchange information with one another. It is estimated there will be 41.6 billion IoT devices in 2025. However, the widespread adoption of IoT technologies also gives rise to significant security, privacy, and reliability issues.
The rise of IoT devices in the workplace will result in increased network traffic and connectivity, making it easier for cybercriminals to exploit vulnerabilities and launch large-scale attacks, resulting in data breaches. Companies should invest in IoT device security to mitigate this risk, by employing security measures such as encryption technology and threat detection.
Beyond awareness
Data breaches continue to be caused by human error, demonstrating that traditional security awareness training approaches are ineffective. Progressive organizations are switching away from old compliance-based security awareness campaigns and investing in behavior and culture change programs to encourage more secure working practices. These security training programs include more engaging content such as video-based learning modules and gamification.
Get threat ready in 2022 with the threat prevention experts
ThreatAdvice's Breach Prevention Platform combines a strong security awareness programme with continuous vulnerability scanning to provide comprehensive cybersecurity oversight. Using this ultimate security stack, you can assess your current infrastructure to determine the true condition of your systems and effectively manage them going forward. Get in touch with the ThreatAdvice team today and safeguard your systems and networks in an increasingly challenging threat environment.