10 Tech Trends That Will Redefine Cybersecurity in 2021

2020 has been a year like no other. The pandemic took the world by surprise and has damaged thousands of lives worldwide. From a technology point of view, life has been catapulted towards digital transformation at a speed no one could ever foresee or dare to dream.

As remote working became a norm, applications, data and people moved outside the traditional bounds of the enterprise and security moved to the edge. Cybersecurity became the enabling engine which permitted businesses to accelerate their pivot to the cloud and take advantage of the speed, scale and resilience of digital transformation.

To work securely, regardless of location, enterprises will now need to introduce real-time user activity monitoring. Cloud-native solutions with a deep understanding of users’ behaviour will deliver permanent solutions, rather than stopgaps. As cybersecurity will become a business differentiator, Brijesh Miglani, Team Lead – Sales Engineering at Forcepoint shared 10 trends that will redefine cybersecurity in 2021:

1. Cloud will become part of the cybersecurity’s DNA as user, application and data have moved to the edge.

2. Data visibility and the management of data protection will be an important cybersecurity imperative for enterprises in the next year.

3. Cybersecurity will further grow in importance at the board level, thus driving demand for secure cloud platforms.

4. Disinformation will continue to increase in focus and scope. People will continue to believe what they read at face value without any additional research.

5. Machine learning and analytics will fall under tighter scrutiny, as trust in their unbiased nature and fairness, as well as ethical boundaries, will be questioned.

6. The future of cybersecurity is human. Behavioural understanding will have to be built into cybersecurity systems as a first important step for starting to move cybersecurity left of breach.

7. The biggest threat will come from people and places it is least expected. Insider threats will have to be taken seriously and accepted as a real risk by security leaders.

8. 2021 will unveil how much of the intellectual property was stolen during the remote working shift by external attackers and malicious insiders.

9. Security will move to the left for the developer and will become easily deployable and fully integrated.  Security will just work and will be so instinctive people will no longer realise they are being “secured”.

10. The cybersecurity sector is expected to see some significant merger and acquisition activity in 2021 through vendor consolidation and/or market movements.