A new report states that everything from energy and financial services to education and healthcare will continue to confront substantial security challenges in the next year.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the crisis to target critical infrastructures such as healthcare and the vaccine supply chain.
According to the researchers from Barracuda Networks, hospitals and healthcare organisations will need to realise and act on the three steps of ransomware protection — avoiding credential leaks, securing access to their applications and infrastructure, and backing up the data.
Report Findings
According to James Forbes-May, Vice President, Barracuda Networks APAC, as security becomes more of a priority, the reporting structure will be determined by the maturity of the organisation and the leadership in place, such as whether or not a CISO is involved.
Forbes-May stated “Organisations will need to proactively shift to putting the measures and stopping those attacks from ever happening or stopping it earlier in the attack chain, so there’s less damage,”
Numerous reports have surfaced describing how ransomware attacks on hospitals have affected patient care and even resulted in deaths.
The researchers noted that “Attacks on critical infrastructure have the most direct impact on people’s lives, so security will be a challenge as cybercriminals continue to focus on these vulnerable areas,”
Since data can no longer be utilised without accountability, privacy will dominate the security conversation in 2022. Globally, almost 75% of all countries have some form of privacy regulation.
The report noted “Companies are adopting many SaaS technologies, downloading apps and software, but they should be aware of the privacy implications of all of the technologies that are being used,”
Organisations will be taking the decisions on which products to use in 2022 based on whether or not the data compliance is sufficient for their customers.
Ransomware would continue to be prominent in the news as the most profitable way for cybercriminals to make money.
Extortion of crucial data to breaching the software supply chain are all examples of these attacks. It has progressed beyond interrupting disrupting business operations to leaking information in order to defame a corporation and damage the trust chain.
Researchers said that it was crucial to find ways to reduce this down through encouraging cooperation between governments as well as developing alliances and partnerships with vendors in the coming year. The researchers stated “Figuring out how to slow that down by encouraging collaboration between governments and developing alliances with vendors will be critical in the year ahead,”
IT security executives would need to improve their forensics and incident response skills.
The majority of businesses are currently investing in tools to secure multiple attack surfaces. The report stated that “it will be crucial to capture signals from every tool and correlate them for actionable insights.”