For the past eight months, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, IT security professionals have mostly spent the year managing the workforce shift from office to home in 2020. Experts predict that 2021 will be focused on supporting the cloud and re-imagining organizational workflows under this new normal. Software security will be critical in this environment.
With 2021 fast approaching, a new era for software development teams, including a focus on better application security tools, scaling on-premise security tools to the cloud, and better protecting internet-of-things (IoT) devices, is expected.
Here are 5 cybersecurity trends you could expect next year:
1) Adapt to the Cloud
Cloud applications and environments are increasingly in the sights of attackers. For instance, threat actors developing techniques to leverage vulnerabilities in the network access to compromise the cloud. Software-development teams will need to keep pace with the development of applications in the cloud henceforth.
2) Open-Source Vulnerabilities
Open-source will continue to attract attacks.
Organizations understand they need to secure the open-source components they’re using and existing solutions that help them in removing mistakenly vulnerable packages, but they are still blind to instances where hackers maliciously push infected code into packages.
The only way to safeguard against this is to stay away from new contributions and stick with more mature, well-known open-source components.
3) Infrastructure as Code
Developers have been rigorously building applications using new infrastructure-as-code environments, which has left major gaps in security. Moving forward, that will drive additional training in IaC security.
There will possibly be a major concentration around cloud security training, IaC best practices, and additional spend allocated toward software and application security to support the demand of a remote workforce and more complex software ecosystems.
4) Holistic View of Security
Teams will need a comprehensive view of their security postures across the organization, driving a need for tools that provide that full ecosystem view.
When it comes to the security of open-source in particular, more comprehensive views will allow organizations to know if they are consuming a vulnerable package and whether or not the way that the application consumes it makes an attack or vulnerability possible.
5) Legacy Devices Vulnerable
Old IoT devices, which are often forgotten about while quietly operating in the background, will continue to be juicy targets for threat actors in 2021.
As these gadgets grow older and obsolete but remain in use, many manufacturers have stopped supporting them with software updates and patches, as newer models are prioritized, making older models prime targets for malicious actors looking for easy access points. Over time, vulnerabilities in these now outdated products will be discovered and exploited.
Cybersecurity experts and analysts note that cybersecurity will continue to evolve even as most of the world enters a post-COVID-19 era, with cybercriminals, threat actors, and nation-state hackers ready to take advantage of whatever may happen next. This will keep the security teams and IT teams trying to catch up with these trends and stay ahead.
Need a better understanding of how security will change next year and what the next 12 months may bring? Get in touch with Trixter Cyber Solutions!
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