According to cybersecurity researchers, cloud-based technologies and various zero trust architecture modules will represent the bulk of IT investments over the next 12 months. Representatives from Microsoft recently surveyed nearly 800 different businesses to find out more about how the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting security issues were starting to shift their requirements.
They found that existing cybersecurity practices were unprepared for the complexities of modern networks even without the additional traffic provided by countless individuals suddenly working from home. As cloud services, remote users and devices owned by individuals repeatedly move in and out of networks, they can’t be trusted. Microsoft’s report found that many IT departments still treated these resources as secure, which is cause for serious concern.
This is precisely why so many people are pushing to adopt new cloud-based solutions that will insulate networks from clients attempting to access them. Perhaps the biggest changes, however, are going to be financial rather than technological as these following six trends suggest.
Increased Security Budgets
According to the report, 58 percent of respondents increased their security budgets while another 82 percent claimed that they were going to add additional staffers to their team. Almost as many business leaders claimed that they were feeling pressure to reduce costs, which was largely due to various economic problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the novel coronavirus first started to make headlines, IT departments around the globe have been investing in multi-factor authentication technology as well as various anti-phishing tools that are designed to protect end-users. As many people are now required to work from home, a majority of the tools these organizations are investing in are those designed to prevent users from falling prey to individual bad actors.
That being said, a number of people also claimed that they were going to pour additional funds into VPN technology in the hopes of protecting networks as a whole.
Ubiquitous Virtual Private Server & Network Deployment
Researchers claim that by this time next year, secure managed VPS resources will be in nearly all industries. Quite a few end-users currently invest in their own VPN services, but fewer people have taken the time to set up a private server that allows them to deploy resources across said network. By investing in these systems, IT departments can be sure that all of the services they provide to their end-users are secure regardless of whether or not the devices they’re accessing them on are.
More than likely, this will be the area in which zero trust design makes the biggest inroads. Using this paradigm, a technician would identify a protected surface, which is made up of the most critical data stored on any resources attached to their network. They would then ensure that nobody is granted implicit trust based solely on credentials alone, which can help to drastically reduce the risk of a cyberattack caused by someone gaining control of an otherwise legitimate asset.
Researchers are predicting that this won’t be the only area where managed service become extremely common, either.
Managed IT Providers Take Over
Media pundits had suggested that there was an overall shortage of cybersecurity personnel in the market even before the pandemic hit. As people have started to work from home and attend online classes in never-before-seen numbers, these shortages have become that much more obvious. Artificial intelligence services have been able to reduce the workload to some degree, especially at organizations that are heavily invested in blockchain technology.
That being said, even the most sophisticated bots will never be able to replace skilled security technicians. That’s why so many organizations are opting to work with an outside managed provider that focuses solely on providing IT services to other businesses. This gives them the freedom to keep up with all of the latest security trends without having to concern themselves about any of the other factors involved with running a business. Pundits are now suggesting that many companies may very well end up pushing an overwhelming majority of their IT-related maintenance tasks to these sorts of outside groups, which might help to ensure that updates are installed on time and nobody is running potentially unsafe code.
At the same time, these services will have more challenges to pay attention to than ever considering that the current push toward 5G networking might be more of a mixed bag than many people initially realized.
The Rise of 5G Threats
Whenever a new technology is released, a number of security threats are sure to follow. It didn’t take long for attackers to seize control of the original IBM PC when it first came out, so it should take even less time for modern well-organized hackers to start attacking next generation 5G platforms.
Some authorities are following the example of French lawmakers by stating that they won’t work with certain outside organizations if they’re untrustworthy. While this will certainly help to reduce the risk of certain types of attacks, IT department staffers will likely have to deal with the possibility of inside jobs. As 5G networking specifications become readily available, bad actors are likely to reverse engineer them. Cybersecurity specialists will have to be ready to handle the coming onslaught.
They’ll also want to consider whether or not the companies they look after have any oversight plan in place.
Increased Oversight by IT Department Heads
Fintech experts recently opined that a majority of cloud computing resources lack any sort of oversight, which is a serious issue when dealing with networked resources.
Business owners will have to either make some dramatic moves to increase the amount of oversight given to each decision or potentially delegate a great deal of authority to individual IT department staffers. As these individuals are in a position where they’re in constant contact with a firm’s needs, this might be the best choice for companies that have previously been burned by having all of their decisions made at the top.
In turn, that might prompt some fairly major migrations in the near future.
The Triumph of Unix-like Operating Systems
Computer scientists have been predicting the replacement of most other operating system paradigms with Unix-based systems for a long period of time, but it finally looks like the industry has crossed the point of no return. For security and performance reasons, Microsoft Azure administrators have been deploying Linux and other Unix-like operating systems inside of virtual machines in large numbers. It’s believed that GNU/Linux installations inside of Azure actually now outnumber Windows-based emulation environments by a fair margin. Azure itself, however, isn’t in any danger of being replaced.
Over the next year, it’s likely that the total number of installations across all devices will continue to grow. While Linux might not conquer as much of the desktop market as some people may like, countless IT departments are purchasing Chromebooks and other types of consumer-grade devices that run system software based on the Linux kernel. Considering the emphasis on cybersecurity as a result of the pandemic, this is a positive development that should help beleaguered specialists reduce the number of maintenance chores they have to sit through.
While research operating systems like Google Fuchsia and Barrelfish continue to make headlines, you probably won’t see them break into production environments for some time. Those who want to stay up-to-date with the latest developments are always welcome to do so, but it seems like the most traditional platforms are going to enjoy a little extra life.
