7 Technology Innovations That Will Impact Cybersecurity in 2022 and Beyond

Published 03/27/2022

Cloud has become the foundation for launching new technologies. As these new technologies are developed and adopted by enterprises, they will increasingly impact cybersecurity. Help our industry start preparing for the future by informing yourself of the top emerging technologies to watch for.

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Emerging technologies & trends to keep an eye on

#1 Artificial Intelligence

As we move forward into the future of automation, AI is proving to play a critical role in the realm of both cyber and cloud security. The ability to learn at the rate of AI makes it extremely important to prioritize discovering the ways that AI can assist security. It’s also important to start standardizing the proper usage of AI, ensuring that businesses are prepared for its continued growth.

#2 Blockchain/Distributed Ledger

Blockchain improves cloud security by improving data security, specifically the confidentiality (privacy), integrity and availability of data. Depending on the Blockchain solution and technology used, you can set the needed security levels for the system as a whole, as well as the individual record level as needed. Because cloud computing often involves the outsourcing of trust to a provider (that runs your IT infrastructure, stores your data, etc.), new ways of ensuring data security are needed.

#3 High Performance Computing

‘Vanilla’ cloud environments were typically not made to handle harsh environments like that of High Performance Computing (HPC) Cloud Security. With the current trend of HPC workloads and infrastructure increasingly becoming cloud-like (e.g., resource pooling, rapid elasticity, on-demand self-service) or interacting with the cloud (e.g., bursting), security will become a great concern at an accelerating rate.

#4 Industrial Control Systems

As Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advance from communicating with networks within the enterprise to interacting externally via IoT platforms and the cloud, their efficiency, effectiveness and scalability have improved. However, these advances create additional complexity and a larger attack surface, which in turn has increased the opportunity for cyber attacks.

#5 Internet of Things (IoT)

Internet of Things (IoT) devices represent a wide variety of non-traditional devices such as medical devices, cars, drones, simple sensors and more. These unique devices often pose a security challenge due to the limited size and lack of innate security, making them difficult to secure with traditional security controls and methodologies. It is a combination of these factors that has rendered many devices vulnerable to attacks like the Mirai botnet.

#6 Quantum Computing

Researchers worldwide are working to make quantum computing a reality. Microsoft, Google, IBM, Intel, and many governments are working on building the first large-scale quantum computer. Particular types of quantum computers, armed with a mathematical algorithm known as Shor’s algorithm, can quickly factor math equations that involve large prime numbers.

Equations involving large prime numbers are what gives most traditional public key cryptography its protective capabilities, since traditional binary-based computers cannot easily factor large prime number equations. Quantum computers with enough “qubits” can factor large prime number equations in a very short amount of time, measured in minutes to days. This means that soon, a quantum computer will be able to break present-day cybersecurity infrastructure. We need to start preparing now.

#7 Zero Trust

Zero Trust is one of the most widely talked about cybersecurity trends today. Zero Trust says no part of a computer and networking system can be implicitly trusted, including the humans operating it. Therefore, we must put measures in place to provide assurance that the systems and their components are operating appropriately, typically under a “least privilege” model and continuously verified.