Cybersecurity Trends for 2022: Get Your Business Ready!

The digital transformation has been rapidly driven by Covid-19 and the need to move office workers to work remotely from home. This has led to the creation of millions of connected offices around the world.

Given this, it's no surprise that data breaches have grown in volume and complexity in 2020, with the number of breaches increasing by 273% in Q1 compared to 2019 .

Worldwide, data hijacking broke a record in the first half of 2021 : 304.7 million ransomware attempts were detected in the 6-month period, while the total figure for 2020 was below, with 304.6 million , according to data from the cybersecurity company SonicWall , released in July 2021. In this report, Brazil ranked fifth on the list of countries with the highest number of attacks.

What's even more surprising is that just one hacker stole 34 million user records from seventeen companies in 2020.

Remote working has created new opportunities for hackers to exploit vulnerable employee devices and networks. As a result, McKinsey & Company estimated that digital transformation has advanced by up to seven years in recent months.

Follow this article until the end to learn about the main cybersecurity trends for 2022!

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Cybersecurity trends for 2022

The volume of data stored will be even greater in the coming years

The world will store 200 zetabytes of data by 2025 , according to Cybersecurity Ventures . This mind-boggling total includes data stored in private and public IT infrastructures, utility infrastructures, cloud data centers and personal devices.

Infographic produced by Cybersecurity Ventures to represent the increase in data volume.

The influences for this to happen include digital transformation and the commercial model of companies, with more people doing business using the internet as their main data transaction channel. Our way of life is increasingly online and the tendency is for it to stay that way.

So it's clear that protecting this data from attacks is not an easy task, especially when there are so many different types and standards of security on devices. It is necessary to look for more advanced solutions.

Increased online transactions become targets for cyber threats

During the pandemic, consumers have shifted dramatically to online channels. Businesses and commercial sectors, in turn, responded by prioritizing digital.

This is proven by Cybersecurity Ventures survey respondents: they are three times more likely now than before the pandemic to say that at least 80% of their customer interactions are digital in nature.

Likewise, increasing the volume of transactions increases the number of criminals looking at this data, which becomes more targeted. Speaking of payment data then, when used on platforms without ideal security standards , they can be easily accessed.

The trend of cybercriminals is the adoption of ransomware

According to a research study by Deep Instinct , ransomware usage increased by 435% in 2020 compared to 2019. The reason is that ransomware has become hackers' weapon of choice in the digital landscape induced by Covid-19. The transformation of so many companies operating in a predominantly digital mode has created more targets for extortion.

The detail is that the average payout for ransomware has grown to around $234,000 per event, according to Coveware , a cybersecurity firm.

The biggest change in the past couple of years is that threat actors now find that their tactics adapt to much larger organizations without much of an increase in their own efforts.

Experts confirm that investing in cybersecurity is a business decision

We have selected phrases from specialists that prove: cybersecurity is linked to business decisions as a whole.

Source: Cybersecurity Is a Business Decision , Published November 2, 2020, Authors: Paul Proctor and Srinath Sampath 

• “Cybersecurity is a business decision. CIOs must adopt a strategic view of cybersecurity as a business decision that balances protection needs with desired outcomes. Technological, environmental, and business drivers for cybersecurity influence how a cybersecurity program is constructed in a business context. Trust and resiliency are built into security and business outcomes”;
• “Evolve the way you measure and report security to reflect levels of protection for your key business outcomes. Make sure your cybersecurity controls are consistent, adequate, reasonable and effective. Treat security like a business decision.”

Source: Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2021: Cybersecurity Mesh , published February 4, 2021, authored by Jay Heiser and Felix Gaehtgens 

• “Cloud computing offers the scalability and affordability needed to host security services that can reliably and conveniently support a global cybersecurity fabric. Offering technology as a service means that the vendor is responsible for routine maintenance and upgrades. The corporate cybersecurity team can focus on policy maintenance, while letting the vendor worry about the plumbing. Gartner research indicates that 80% of organizations expect to use security as a service by 2023.”

Why are companies moving to the cloud and how does this relate to data security? 

Since your data is stored in the cloud, you can access it no matter what happens to your machine. You can even remotely wipe data from lost devices so they don't fall into the wrong hands.

In this case, it contributes two important aspects:

Security process automation

The lack of an experienced security team is expected to lead organizations to rely more and more on automating the security process. Automation tools ensure continuous, automated security operations based on pre-established rules and procedures.

Thus, security tasks can be carried out quickly, effectively and with less chance of errors.

Focus on data privacy

With growing concerns around data management and security, privacy must be a part of compliance requirements. In the cloud, this is already defined as its own and increasingly significant discipline to stay aligned with cybersecurity.

Remember that data privacy affects nearly every aspect of an organization, from driving corporate strategy to direct alignment with security, HR, governance and procurement. But with the cloud, it is much easier to meet the requirements of the LGPD (General Data Protection Act) .

Now that you already know everything about cybersecurity and how the cloud works to guarantee the highest level of security, migrate your system to the cloud in a few hours and reduce up to 70% of your IT expenses Sky.One solutions !