Cloud has become a necessity, and its security has become critical in the wake of the pandemic. Acting as a strong barrier to cloud migration, security has forced business leaders to feel the pressure of keeping up with the rapidly changing technological landscape. Addressing ransomware is number one, followed closely by cloud security, states Microsoft. ‘Ensuring cloud resources, workloads, and apps are securely configured’ and ‘gaps in protection across hybrid, multi-cloud, and multi-platform environments’ are some of the significant cybersecurity challenges, it added. All of this makes cloud security an area of security investment this year. With that under consideration, here are the major points related to cloud security 2022 that you should aware of.

• Cybersecurity Mesh

Modern organizations need flexible security solutions as they deal with various technologies. Cybersecurity mesh is known to enforce security policies to safeguard endpoints, end-users, systems, data, networks, and apps as a system of integrated digital security solutions. It is leveraged to secure data or systems regardless of their location and is used to protect against ever-evolving security threats. The future of cybersecurity mesh looks bright. It will be used as a defensive strategy to align cloud-based innovation with cybersecurity and safeguard multi-cloud environments. Cybersecurity mesh will support more than 50% of IAM requests by 2025, Gartner.

• Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)

ZTNA technologies replace traditional remote access solutions and allow organizations to have safe remote access to cloud services and apps through dynamic access control policies. A point to note here is they provide remote access but don’t give full access to the cloud network. These solutions deny access by default and only give explicitly granted access. Using the zero trust model, ZTNA controls user access across dynamic cloud services. With the increase in the adoption of cloud computing, we can expect organizations to use ZTNA to provide sustainable security and scalability.

• Secure Web Gateway (SWG)

SWGs act as a cyberbarrier or checkpoint that uses URL filtering, advanced threat defense, and legacy malware protection to safeguard users from web-based threats and enhance network security. It is gaining popularity as traditional network security controls cannot secure the world with the modern cloud. A lot of organizations are using cloud-based, SaaS SWGs solutions. SWG fits well into modern enterprise security architectures as it helps in encrypted traffic analysis, data loss prevention, social media protection, integration with security monitoring, and more.

• Firewall as a Service (FWaaS)

A firewall acts as the keystone of an organization’s security strategy. FWaaS moves firewall functionality to the cloud enabling an organization to get many security benefits. The FWaaS market size is expected to grow to USD 1.70 Billion by 2022, Marketsandmarkets. FWaaS offers advantages like unified security policy, streamlined policy enforcement, flexible deployment, simplified deployment and maintenance, and enhanced scalability and flexibility. It empowers an organization to restructure its network security when used along with technologies like SD-WAN.

• Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)

CASB is a security tool that enables organizations to safeguard their cloud-based data effectively. It can manage the security of an organization’s apps and empower users to control the data that leaves and enters the cloud. CASB is used to encrypt confidential data in motion and at rest, give visibility to endpoints from a single console, bring transparency into the cloud stack, maintain integrity and confidentiality, employ endpoint protection solutions, provide protection against threats, and to enforce rules to avoid improper use of cloud services. By 2024, 30% of enterprises will adopt cloud-delivered SWG, CASB, ZTNA, and FWaaS capabilities from the same vendor, Gartner.

• Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

SASE technologies enable organizations to secure cloud access and virtual workloads. As the SASE architecture is platform-agnostic, it allows flexible security infrastructure. It can secure digital-first businesses, a virtual workforce, and a digital customer experience. To help modern organizations with their dynamic, secure access needs, SASE combines network security functions like SWG, CASB, FWaaS, and ZTNA, with WAN capabilities. SASE’s security components or core capabilities include FWaaS, ZTNA, and CASB. In 2022, we expect ZTNA to be the top SASE need for leaders.Toolbox’s latest blog discusses valuable insights on cloud security gathered from security and cloud leaders across the globe, let’s check some of them out,

• IT Leaders Will Expect To See Dramatic Growth in Hybrid and Multi-Clouds Next Year

John Annand, analyst and director of the infrastructure team, Info-Tech Research Group

“Enterprises must invest in process discipline as well as skills and culture change. Hybrid cloud, private cloud once quickly passed over as being inferior to the public giants are now easier than ever to implement and manage. Hybrid and multi-cloud solutions allow the business to choose the best fit for their workload without compromising the fidelity to their service management and integrations. There has to be a realization that it makes more sense to share expertise and act as a community against common threats rather than treat security as a product differentiator.”

• CISOs Will Implement Borderless Security Based on a Zero-Trust Architecture

Stan Wisseman, chief security strategist North America, Micro Focus

“Remote work is here to stay, and the concept of securing a perimeter has essentially ended. CISOs will need to think strategically and implement borderless security based on a zero-trust architecture (ZTA). For business continuity, organizations must enable access of mission-critical assets to employees wherever they are located. Employees are probably accessing these resources from personal, shared devices and unsecured networks. As a result, CISOs need to redesign their security controls and identity and access management policies to reflect the shift to ZTAs. To this end, they must have full visibility into connected devices and the rapidly expanding endpoints in the enterprise.”

• IT Leaders Will Invest in an Identity-Defined Security Strategy in 2022

Heather Gantt-Evans, chief information security officer, SailPoint

“Investing in cloud security hardening and monitoring. As companies continue to push to the cloud, we must acknowledge that there is still ownership on the customer to harden and monitor their cloud environment even with the most advanced cloud service providers. Security misconfigurations in the cloud comprise a large attack surface that is getting bigger daily. Ensure that you are investing in an identity-defined security strategy. The perimeter-defined security of the past is no longer sufficient in today’s working world where employees are not just bringing their own devices but bringing their own environments.”

• Bringing Security Tooling Into the Automation Process of the Cloud Will Be Vital in 2022

Nicko Van Someren, CTO, Absolute Software

“One trend that has been going on in the cloud space is a march towards more automation, resulting in better elasticity and flexibility. In 2022, we will see a lot more of this trend bringing security tooling into the automation process of cloud deployment. Companies that operate services in the cloud will be hardening those services by putting more security automation into the deployment process. Automating more of the security testing and the configuration will bring better protections for services operating in the cloud.”

• SASE Framework Will Push Network Security and Access Close to Users

Manikandan Thangaraj, vice president of program management, ManageEngine

“Organizations will look to secure access service edge (SASE), a security framework with network controls placed at the cloud edge. Instead of connecting to multiple platforms individually, users can connect to the corporate network located at cloud data centers to use enterprise applications. This gives IT administrators the ability to monitor access and exercise granular controls over the network. With zero trust as its core component, SASE grants access to networks, applications, and data only if the user’s identity has been verified, and all authorization requests are approved on a need-to-know basis. Also vital is a centralized access policy control defined by the organization to deliver unified security measures across all platforms. Being cloud-native, SASE pushes network security and access close to users, which is especially critical now.”

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