Top Cybersecurity Threats for 2022 and How to Protect your Business
Over the last year, chances are your business faced significant challenges, from navigating remote and hybrid work environments to an increase in devastating cyberattacks. The new year is typically a time to reset and start strong, but we unfortunately expect to see continued cybersecurity threats on the horizon. However, we also know that the best way to avoid disaster is to plan for it. In this post, we share our top cybersecurity predictions for the year ahead and highlight several affordable and effective strategies to protect your business in 2022 and beyond.
The Ransomware Threat Remains Strong
Over the last year, we saw a record number of ransomware attacks on businesses, and the threat landscape doesn’t look much better in 2022. Many businesses still rely on legacy systems and outdated security strategies. Cybercriminals know this, and they continue to evolve their tactics to unleash sophisticated and damaging attacks. Case in point: modern ransomware attacks are now capable of bypassing and even exploiting traditional best practices in cybersecurity, from regular back-ups to two-factor authentication (2FA).
Complicating matters is our new reality of work, in which some or all employees are working remotely or in a hybrid modality. This increases your vulnerability, as your team is likely using a range of personal devices and insecure connections to access the network. All it takes is one convincing phishing attempt, a man-in-the-middle attack, or an SMS phishing (smishing) attack to capture someone’s 2FA and gain access to your infrastructure.
To combat this threat, up your security game by investing in stronger security measures, including Zero Trust network access and immutable backups.
Zero Trust is a holistic, organisation-wide approach to enhanced network security. With Zero Trust network access, all of your users and devices must first prove authenticity before accessing your network.
The concept of immutable backups means that once your backup data is written, it can never be changed or deleted. This thwarts sophisticated ransomware attacks that target data backups and enables your technology team to more quickly restore your operations to a recent and clean state. Read more about how immutable backups can be your last line of defence.
Another effective strategy against the rising threat of ransomware is Extended Detection and Response or XDR, to stop ransomware before it fully infects your machine and your network. XDR offers continuous protection and risk reduction; automation to minimise response time; and extended security for endpoint detection and response. Learn more about how XDR can stop ransomware in its tracks.
The Acceleration of Hybrid Working Challenges
Over the last year, we saw the extent to which remote and hybrid working infiltrated businesses of all sizes and industries. The trend toward hybrid working is here to stay, meaning that your team will need to continue to adapt to the unique threats you face.
To accommodate the modern office, many organisations will move toward cloud-based services, if they haven’t already done so. Cloud services will extend the reach of your internal network to remote offices and home workers, but it also puts your operations at greater risk of attack. Today’s technology teams should invest in the appropriate strategies to secure this new workforce, including Zero Trust security, endpoint security, and software-defined wide-area networking, or SD-WAN.
SD-WAN is a fast, scalable, and flexible solution to support not only digital innovation within your business, but also top-notch data security. The right solution will offer easy, built-in security; improved performance; simplified management; greater visibility; and, in some cases, it comes with expert support and maintenance from a trusted third party, like Optec. Read more about our Fortinet Secure SD-WAN offering.
Consolidation is Key to Cybersecurity in the Year to Come
Today’s modern businesses are leaning into digital transformation, including greater investments in optimisation and consolidation. Your cybersecurity strategy should be a key part of this consolidation planning.
Gartner suggests that while security leaders may juggle dozens of security-related tools, they hope to consolidate to fewer than 10 such tools in the year ahead. By 2024, Gartner expects at least one-third of businesses to consolidate security capabilities (such as secure web gateways, Zero Trust network access, and Firewall-as-a-Service) from a single vendor. The reason? Consolidating these capabilities will help already-overstretched teams save money, reduce complexity, and unlock beneficial new areas of complementary, powerful, and efficient security.
For example, we mentioned XDR above as a way to improve your protection and detection capabilities. However, XDR also offers tremendous flexibility and scalability and many solutions leverage automation for even greater real-time security. Because it’s a consolidated approach to cybersecurity, XDR solutions can not only keep you safe, but reduce your costs and staffing requirements and increase the productivity of your in-house technology or security team.
The Supply Chain is Scrutinised in 2022
Recent large-scale attacks continue to demonstrate just how vulnerable the larger economic supply chain is to cybercrime—the Colonial Pipeline, Kaseya, and SolarWinds attacks come immediately to mind. While no industry is immune, manufacturing companies especially should be aware of these threats and take measures to prevent a similarly devastating attack in 2022. The lure for hackers is that in targeting a key supply chain provider, they can gain access to numerous customers (sometimes numbering in the thousands) at the very same time.
A recent report from Check Point suggests that even if you’re not in manufacturing or wholly dependent on the supply chain, these supply chain attacks will have a “ripple effect” that could be harmful to many other partners, customers, and providers along the chain. The same report also expects the trend of supply chain attacks to escalate alongside an increase in data breaches and malware infections. At Optec, for example, we fully expect malware to spread from Information Technology (IT) to Operational Technology (OT).
To stay protected, manufacturing companies (and others) will need to adopt greater OT cybersecurity protections by designing cybersecurity solutions that fit right into your complete infrastructure, to best integrate security and protections across your full IT and OT environments. In addition, we recommend you take the time to understand the most common threats facing your business, determine your risk factors (and leverage technology to test your vulnerabilities), and invest in cybersecurity training for your whole team.
Staying Secure in 2022 and Beyond
We wish this was a more hopeful assessment of the year ahead. The security landscape is troubling and challenging for all of us, from SMBs to large manufacturing corporations. However, there are proven and affordable solutions that you can implement right now to protect your network, safeguard your reputation, and foster growth in the year ahead. At Optec, please consider us your trusted partner in this journey. We work with you to deliver everything you need—and nothing more—to ensure continued security and scale. Now that sounds like a positive new years’ resolution to us!
To learn more about where you network security stands and prepare to take on the threats ahead, book a free cyber threat assessment with Optec.
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