Top Cyber Security Trends & Statistics for 2022

Cybercrime is one of the world’s most pervasive security risks today. By 2025, the cost of cybercrime is anticipated to reach $10.5 trillion, based on the current 15% annual growth rate. Now, 2022 is rapidly approaching, and experts have started making cyber security predictions that will have a substantial influence on your business. (1)

Predicting the future can be difficult, particularly considering how quickly technology and cyber security trends evolve. But based on the trends in the cyber security industry so far, there are a few probabilities that you’ll see in the coming year.

Related:  Watch our 2022 Webinar:  Improving your cyber security posture and how the Essential 8 can support your business.

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 sparked a worldwide trend toward remote work. Most organizations have stated that they will continue to provide the option of remote employment. That means that 2022 will still see a good number of businesses working with remote teams. Although this can be seen as a development in the right direction, it also contributes to the security concerns businesses will deal with in 2022.

In addition to the continued relevance of work from home, the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices will grow in 2022, adding to the existing huge digital footprint. As businesses become more reliant on IoT devices, hackers will have more opportunities to target them. IoT devices can represent a big security danger to enterprises as work from home becomes more widespread. (2)

In addition, while attacks on system weaknesses are still common, there has been a growing emphasis on assaults on individual employees on their devices. In 2022, the rise of bring your own device (BYOD) and IoT devices will cause more cyber security issues. Businesses will need to use passwords in conjunction with multi-factor authentication techniques to boost security.

With the severity of cybercrime on the rise, most businesses are devising measures to protect themselves from external threats and those from within as well. This approach will improve their security, boost customer trust, experience and create a balance between security and convenience.

The best way to protect businesses is by creating user awareness programs. This is to educate on how to identify and neutralize threats. There are still many people who can’t differentiate between a phishing email from a genuine one. This makes user education essential in preventing such assaults.

Many companies use different techniques in teaching their personnel. Teams get training on how to manage and communicate sensitive company data and identify threats. It’s expected that there will be greater emphasis on sensitizing personnel about the necessity of cyber security to help secure digital business assets.

More enterprises and organizations are moving their workflows and processes to the cloud using cloud management software solutions. But many cloud services providers don’t provide proper encryption, authentication or secure logging. Some also fail to keep user data separate from that of other tenants sharing cloud space.

As a result, IT security experts see the need to strengthen cloud security. Due to a lack of or weak cloud security settings, fraudsters may circumvent internal restrictions that safeguard critical data in the cloud database. This has resulted to cloud security evolving into predictive yet inventive protection measures to battle cybercriminals.

Predictive security is becoming more useful in detecting attacks before they are launched. It can help track and identify attacks that go past other endpoint protection. As a result, more organizations may lean towards using predictive security cloud in 2022 and beyond. Meanwhile, several industries have turned to multi-factor authentication to strengthen security.

As you expand your online presence, cybersecurity must be a top priority due to the growing number of cyberattacks – in fact, there has been a 600% increase in 2021.

The Australian Government, led by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), strives to prevent these instances from occurring and assist businesses like yours strengthen their cyber security posture.

As the first line of defence, they developed the Essential 8.  By complying with the Essential 8, you will be in the best position to protect your digital assets against an attack.

The Essential 8 can be tailored according to your business’s risk profile and requirements.
They have been designed to complement each other, and to provide coverage across a range of cyber threats and cover 8 areas:

The NIST cyber security framework is a necessary tool that helps businesses strengthen their cybersecurity programs. It provides best practice guidelines that help businesses improve their cyber security posture by providing recommendations and standards that better prepare a business for a cyber attack. From identifying and detecting cyberattacks to responding, preventing and recovering from an incident.

Developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), this cybersecurity framework provides a common set of standards for businesses to use. It is considered to be the gold standard for building your cyber security program. No matter what stage of cyber security your business is at the NIST framework will provide a security management tool to help your business manage cyber risk across your business.

Zero trust is a strategy that involves trusting nothing and no one. The need to verify everything relating to devices and people. This approach to security requires that you have all users, both within and outside your organization, to authenticate their access. You assume that the network is hostile, allowing the least privileged access.

In 2022, this approach is expected to become critical in preventing identity theft through various channels. These channels include stolen secrets, breached data perimeters and lateral threats. Zero trust restricts access controls as much as possible to networks, processes, applications and environments without compromising performance and user experiences.

With the proliferation of health-related applications comes a crackdown on how healthcare institutions must handle health data. The health sector is expected to place a greater focus on data sharing. The Federal Trade Commission recently proposed more stringent requirements for mandating data breach reporting from these institutions and those involved in health app development. This proposal is sparking debate over what categories of health data should be covered by the law. (3)

It’s difficult to predict the exact pathways cyber security, experts and hackers will take. But looking at the current and historical patterns and data can help predict what trends cyber security will take in the near future. Most businesses are still figuring out how to strengthen their defences and safeguard their digital assets from cyber-attacks. The trends discussed in this post are some of the top cyber security trends you’re likely to see in 2022 and beyond.

1. “Cybercrime To Cost The World $10.5 Trillion Annually By 2025”, Source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cybercrime-to-cost-the-world-10-5-trillion-annually-by-2025–301172786.html
2. “How Is IoT Impacting The Digital World and Remote Workforce?”, Source: https://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/how-is-iot-impacting-the-digital-world-and-remote-workforce/
3. “Health app makers are on notice amid FTC data rule refresh, but some privacy experts say the regulator has gone too far”, Source: https://digiday.com/marketing/health-app-makers-are-on-notice-amid-ftc-data-rule-refresh-but-some-privacy-experts-say-the-regulator-has-gone-too-far/
4. 15 Important cyber security statistics, Source:  https://www.titanfile.com/blog/15-important-cybersecurity-statistics-in-2021/