Among the cyber predictions for 2022, Kurt Glazemakers, CTO at the secure remote access software firm Appgate, comments on how more organisations will try to achieve SecDevOps and how Zero Trust Network Access will help achieve this.
In the past two years we have seen a staggering acceleration of organisations moving to the cloud in an effort to adapt to hybrid working. As an organisation’s cloud continues to host more and more data, in 2022 we can subsequently expect to see an increase of businesses looking for cloud-based security solutions.
With hybrid working, employees are accessing the cloud from multiple locations at different times, which means that organisations will start to implement more effective solutions that are secure and scalable. The working-from-home environment has forced organisations to recognise security as a top-priority; they no longer have to choose between ensuring network performance and security- the two go hand in hand and it’s now the norm to see them working in harmony, rather than as two separate entities. With the work-from-anywhere era showing no sign of ending, this approach will force organisations to superior security architectures like Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
More organisations will start adopting modern cloud driven, containerised, automated development methods, using advanced automated deploy processes (devops) to speed up development cycles. The network and security controls need a similar boost in both agility and security using a SecDevOps approach and traditional security approaches will not work anymore. SecDevOps applies security into every stage of the development operations and deployment cycle. The process makes sure that security is not an after-thought for companies, which it has been in the past, and ensures that each team within the development lifecycle is equally focused on implementing security within their own processes.
To do this, 2022 will see more organisations look towards ZTNA as a solution to provide both efficient security and scalability. By implementing a ‘zero trust’ approach to security, and ensuring all teams are applying security to their processes, while still keeping high level policy enforcements, organisations can achieve SecDevOps by aligning their business needs with their security needs. By employing a single unified process, it ensures that the organisation’s network security still meets business demands in a similar agile and even more secure way.
Over the past year, there has been an increased demand for specific ZTNA solutions, which is a good indicator that the market has become more established and matured. This has been helped by US and UK government agencies calling on organisations to adopt ZTNA, with both the Pentagon launching a zero trust cybersecurity office in December and the NCSC issuing a guidance on zero trust design principals back in July. Integration and costs are also becoming a bigger focus, with organisations looking for solutions that provide maximum security for a minimum price. We have seen a change in the solutions organisations are looking for, with their focus on solutions that can be integrated into an existing architecture rather than replaced. As such, in 2022, organisations are likely to execute ZTNA solutions because they can provide security, integration, scalability, and cost savings.
This movement by organisations to a permanent solution, such as ZTNA, will subsequently lead to a reduction in legacy technologies and more antiquated solutions that are currently clogging up the market. Organisations need to become more efficient and have solutions that offers genuine clarity on how they can become secure. As such, we will see an evolution from legacy technologies, such as VPNs, to more mature, dynamic, and easy to manage solutions like ZTNA.
