If a few holdouts still remained in doubt, the discovery a few weeks ago of the Log4j vulnerability, considered one of the most serious security vulnerabilities of recent years due to the millions of users of Java applications in the world recalled how security remains an absolutely necessary investment.
We can safely say that this trend will continue and accelerate in the years to come, with the need for constant strengthening of the visibility and inventory capacities of the networks, to identify the systems as quickly as possible. affected, measure the potential impact and remedy the risk.
What does 2022 have in store for us in terms of changes in the sector, risks and practices?
New attacks to be expected via IoT systems
Between 2020 and 2021, the number of CCTV cameras affected by vulnerabilities increased by 19%. This figure illustrates a trend that will inevitably continue next year: that of the regular appearance of new vulnerabilities and attacks discovered by surveillance organizations, exposing industrial or critical environments, such as data centers, as well as institutional environments. like cities or transport networks. All areas are concerned, from transport to energy, including health technologies and vital infrastructure. The development of analytical and research capacities in cybersecurity makes it possible to improve the daily detection of these new risks.
One of the best-known is the development of 5G and IoT (Internet of Things): the proliferation of these systems certainly brings new services and benefits to users, but also contributes to a particularly large enlargement of the surface area. ‘attack. There are more and more examples of distributed attacks, the most recent being the emergence of the Moobot botnet, which uses CCTV cameras to launch Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
In 2022 and in the years to come, new attacks of this type are to be expected in this area, reinforcing the need for greater visibility to protect companies as much as possible.
The health situation, a vector of new vulnerabilities
For two years, an exogenous element has impacted the international security landscape: the pandemic has revealed the dependence of our economies on the global logistics chain, which depends heavily on the capacities of the maritime sector. However, this type of industrial environment has a level of safety that is still too low, which requires real awareness.
This has already started to be put in place, with resolution MSC.428 (98) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which requires maritime operators to audit their environments on land and at sea and take into account cyber risk, but that’s just the start. By profoundly changing the ways of working, the pandemic has also opened new doors of vulnerabilities with the development of teleworking and remote access; many questions now arise, particularly in the administration and supervision of critical or sensitive environments in the industrial sector.
One thing is certain: constantly improving detection and defense capabilities cannot be done without stronger collaboration from cybersecurity players, both private and institutional. Things seem to be going in this direction, as evidenced by the upcoming opening of the Cyber Campus in La Défense, intended to promote the French cyber sector and encourage exchanges between players in the sector to bring about the emergence of solid cybersecurity solutions. This can also be seen through integrations and technological alliances forged by specialized players in the sector, to advance technological efficiency for the benefit of companies.
The transition from cybersecurity to the cloud and “SaaS” will intensify
If the IT sector has long initiated its transformation towards the cloud and the “as-a-service” model, this dynamic is increasingly affecting cyber attacks. The most recent botnets and ransomware are all distributed on an “as-a-service” basis, allowing almost any type of user to launch them with ease.
At the same time, SaaS (software-as-a-service) offers are also conquering the industrial sector, replacing historically compartmentalized tools, in favor of a growing transition to industry 4.0. SaaS solutions provide industrial security tools with faster scalability, to adapt to the increase in the number of devices to be secured, and the possibility of efficiently using new technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence) or data analysis algorithms. This gain in speed is an essential element today to keep pace with which the attacks themselves evolve.
2022 will not be a revolutionary year in terms of risks or security, but will experience the acceleration of trends already underway, with the intensification of risks related to IoT, 5G, telework and remote access, and the ‘impact of the use of increasingly varied IT equipment in sensitive environments that are increasingly open and interconnected. To respond to them, both private and institutional actors will then have to strengthen their collaboration in order to provide a coordinated, rapid and effective response against these emerging threats.