The tech industry is evolving at a faster rate than most enterprises can keep up with. As organizations transform to better accommodate hybrid work models, combat constant ransomware threats and automate more than ever before, many are looking to the coming year with uncertainty.
Deepak Mohan, 30 year technologist and EVP, Products, at Veritas Technologies, a leader in enterprise data protection, has provided his top tech predictions for 2022 – shining a necessary light on the key themes organizations can expect and plan for in the coming year:
1. AI/ML will drive the next wave ransomware – and its protection
Over the past year, ransomware attacks have increased dramatically across all industry sectors and hackers continue to get savvier. In 2022, we expect AI-powered security and data protection to take center stage for both hackers and the businesses that work to keep them at bay. As hackers introduce threats that can automatically adapt to avoid detection, organizations will respond by using AI and ML technology to secure infrastructures and protect data with tools that are continually learning and improving all on their own – much faster than humans could hope to update them.
2. Cybersecurity awareness will reach an all-time high among employees
The meteoric rise of ransomware has shined a spotlight on the dangers of malware, making cybersecurity a regularly trending topic on social media and the nightly news. As a result, the average employee will be much more aware of ransomware attacks – and therefore open and receptive to education on how to defend against them. This will create the best opportunity in a long time for businesses to get their employees to buy in to their protection strategy. Which is fortunate because they’ve also never been more at risk. In 2022, employees should expect to witness a big uptick in communications about protecting company data and how they can become part of the solution.
3. Containerization will start to take flight in mainstream production environments
The entire world is starting to shift its attention to Kubernetes and the orchestration of containers and 2022 will be the year where we really start to see serious deployments in production environments. Just as we went from physical to virtual to cloud, we’re now ready to make the next step and go to microservices and containers. This will allow businesses to really achieve the benefits that they were promised when they moved to the cloud. Enterprises with diverse applications or large and complex IT infrastructures will be able to realize the scalability and elasticity of the cloud to drive cost savings, as well as freedom of movement – from on-premises to the cloud and from cloud to cloud. We’re already starting to see some of the biggest cloud providers offer turnkey Kubernetes solutions, as containers enable ease of data portability and, in 2022, we’re expecting greater adoption of these by enterprises around the world. For all these reasons, in the new year, it will be all about Kubernetes.
4. Businesses will rebalance the hybrid cloud
The pandemic boosted cloud adoption in an unprecedented way, with 89% of respondents to a recent Veritas survey stating that they had accelerated the journey to the cloud over the last 18 months. However, having made rapid decisions about what data to host where, many businesses are now ready to make longer-term strategic decisions about what their hybrid cloud will look like. Balancing the cost of different public cloud services against both convenience, and the SLAs they require, will be a challenge that many businesses will grapple with in 2022. Add to this the need to factor in ransomware resilience and it’s clear that balancing the mix of physical, virtual and multi-cloud will be a highly nuanced decision. One thing is clear though; everything will be hybrid.
5. Ransomware attacks will lead to legal ramifications for executives
Over the past year, ransomware attacks have skyrocketed and have had a dire effect on the economy, social trust and information management. These attacks are financially paralyzing and debilitating, and have increased 185% year-to-date, with costs expected to surpass $20 billion by the end of this year. As these attacks continue to be lucrative opportunities for bad actors, the stakes continue to rise. Attackers have started to target the very organizations that protect and support human life, such as hospitals and food supply chains.
Up until recently, the ramifications of a ransomware attack were typically limited to the business, rather than its individual leaders. But now that human lives are literally on the line, governments are stepping in and upping the ante. In the new year, we expect that executives could be facing legal ramifications and time behind bars for potential negligence, in addition to losing their jobs. Because of this, in 2022, execs will have no choice but to make combatting ransomware their number-one concern and priority.
6. Generative IT will create a new category of data for businesses to manage
Technologies that take existing content and repurpose and recombine it to create new content are poised for an explosion. Gartner predicts that “Generative IT” will grow from creating 1% of all data today, to 10% of all data in the next three-and-a-half years. But this will create a whole new category of data for businesses to manage and protect. Setting in place the right classification tools to ensure that its lifecycle is managed and that it is stored in a compliant way will be critical to the early success of these projects. Otherwise, this could become the dark data of the future.
