Cybersecurity is always improving as technology advances, which means it’s extremely important to be aware of trends within the industry. Throughout the first half of 2021, we saw cyberespionage campaigns, zero-day vulnerabilities, ransomware attacks, and more, making cybersecurity critical. Due to this, experts are looking to the rest of the year to determine what the remainder of 2021 will have in store. Here are a few trends that everyone should keep in mind while going into the latter months of 2021.
Hybrid Work
More and more people have been returning to in-person work, but a large portion of companies are entering a hybrid work environment if they haven’t already. This increase in remote workers means that cybersecurity needs to be a major factor in establishing hybrid work. Over a year of remote work resulted in a larger attack surface, lax security practices, and a lack of training and resources to protect home networks. These issues could follow employees back to the office, which will potentially lead to an increase in support calls for infected devices—both immediate and eventual. Some will be clear right away as infected devices try to connect to the corporate network, but eventual problems can travel under the radar and slip through the cracks.
Shadow IT
Employees are likely to bring the devices they relied on while working from home once they return to the office, or they may use certain apps that helped conduct their work during the lockdown. These can both open the door to a wave of shadow IT and security issues. Security and IT teams should ensure that all devices used during the work-from-home era are updated and secured before connecting to the local area network at corporate offices; this will help keep cybercriminals from gaining a foothold in any vulnerabilities.
Companies should require their employees to use built-in update mechanisms so their devices have the latest update before they come into the office. Additionally, incoming devices should be put into a quarantine section of the network for a system integrity and security check. The goal of all of this is to re-establish a secure state within the company and work culture.