Another year of great developments and progress in the technology field has passed. From growing artificial intelligence technologies to new detection software and more, the tech and cyber industry is always a place for growth. We now look to the coming year to discuss upcoming trends we see within the industry and how they will alter the tech landscape, whether it be for better or worse.
Trend 1: Increasing Security to Meet Cyber Insurance Requirements
The cyber insurance industry continues to grow as bad actors continue to advance their tactics. Businesses are being encouraged to up their cybersecurity practices, and in some cases, businesses are being required to have specific types of defenses in place. For many, this means developing documentation related to incident response plans (IRPs) and written information security policies (WISPs) that ensure your key players, your employees, and your insurance company know the procedure to follow in the case of an attack.
Trend 2: Artificial Intelligence Grows Smarter
AI is always a hot topic in the tech space, and as advancements continue to increase its capabilities, AI is finding its way into many different fields. A recent example of AI progression is the Chat GBT bot, a high-tech AI learning tool that can replicate human conversation and writing. Artificial Intelligence has always been a technology to watch, but now, as its abilities continue to grow stronger, it really deserves a top watch spot. Businesses will now face the challenge of AI optimization to extract the best results possible from everything this technology brings to the table.
Trend 3: Supply Chain Strain Continues
While the initial effects of the pandemic’s slowdown on global supply chain have eased up a bit, shipping and distribution still face challenges today due to some long-lasting effects of the initial disruption. Tech products continue to experience disruptions, sometimes causing up to weeks or even months of delay on shipments. This trend is directly impacting us as your IT provider, but we do our best to ensure lead times line up to complete your projects on time. Sometimes we end up cancelling one order and replacing a similar order just to achieve quicker delivery dates. Obviously, that is situation dependent, but we are doing our best to order, receive, and configure equipment in a timely manner.
Trend 4: Pushing a Security-First Workplace
The largest obstacle faced by IT vendors, IT departments, and employees attempting to implement stronger cybersecurity practices within their organization is receiving buy-in from the C-Suite employees. Going into the new year and coupled with increased pressure from vendors and insurance companies to improve cyber security posture, we should be seeing the C-Suite buy-in obstacle lessening its grasp on corporate America.
Trend 5: Zero Trust: A Growing Mindset
Zero Trust, the newest buzzword of tech. It is also known as Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA). The concept is to ensure tighter security by requiring more checks before being authenticated. Then, once authenticated, users are granted just enough access for what is needed … no more, no less. Currently, the word has been more of a buzzword, thus implementation of ZTNA in practice is quite low. In the coming year, ZTNA implementation is expected to expand rapidly as businesses adopt this next rung in their cybersecurity stack.
Trend 6: Cloud Platforms and Endpoint Security
The Cloud is used everywhere nowadays, allowing for easy collaboration and discussion on shared topics across many boundaries including countries. However, many companies do not account for proper endpoint protection on company devices that are physically outside the confines of the corporate offices. Being able to create, view, and edit company data and documents from anywhere in the world opens a business up to a higher chance of attacks. This is even more of an issue when the data is being accessed from personal devices. Implementing strong Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) software is crucial for ongoing security. Proper endpoint security allows you to detect and respond to attacks in the moment, rather than after the vulnerability has been compromised by the bad guys. Also, requiring a company-owned device to access corporate data, in effect, forces the use of EDR software – which is a really good idea.
We are excited see how these trends push the tech and cyber industry further throughout 2023. With many of these trends related to your company’s IT and cybersecurity policies, TechSolutions can also be your guiding hand to navigate and implement some or all of them in the coming year.