Cyber Defense Magazine Special Annual Edition for RSA Conference 2021

Transformation happens fast in today's world of information security. Sometimes history is an indicator
of how things will change, and sometimes a once-in-a-generation pandemic comes along and shows us
a future we could never have predicted. With 2020 behind us, the threats it spawned have opened a new
cybersecurity landscape. So, what might we predict that 2021 will bring?
#1. No Speed Limit on Cloud Migration
There's no doubt that in 2020, while companies scrambled with lockdowns taking place worldwide, many
realized that they don't have business resilience built into their IT operations. As companies quickly came
to terms with their on-premise deployments lacking resilience, the already rapidly increasing cloud
adoption rate was compounded and will continue into 2021.
Companies that didn't have a significant digital channel were also greatly impacted as they struggled to
adapt in 2020. For this reason, many companies will be focused on the rapid growth of their digital
channel, which will further drive the acceleration of moving to the cloud in 2021.
#2. Zero Trust to Hit Mainstream
The traditional castle-and-moat approach of creating a security perimeter has repeatedly shown to be
ineffective against sophisticated attacks. Its assumption that users, endpoints, applications, workloads,
and traffic within a network can be inherently trusted is flawed. This incorrect assumption allows for any
threats within the network to move laterally and remain undetected. And, with remote work being the new
norm, the attack surface for cyberthreats has expanded exponentially.
This has paved the way for the mainstream embrace of Zero Trust architecture in 2021. With a Zero Trust
approach, every user, application, workload, and network flow is assumed untrusted. This micro-level
approach ensures that access requests are monitored and verified at every point within a network,
shrinking the attack surface to a bare minimum.
Cloud-delivered solutions like the ColorTokens Xtended ZeroTrust TM Platform are making Zero Trust a
reality for any enterprise, including SMBs, which will not be spared in the years ahead. As enterprises
seek to stay ahead of evolving cyberthreats, such Zero Trust projects and their mainstream embrace will
take off in 2021.
#3. Granular Access Appeals
As the new normal sets in, providing granular user access controls are taking center stage as a 2021
security initiative. The world has moved to work from everywhere, and workforces spread across the
globe demand access to critical data and applications. A fine-grained, dynamic framework is needed to
effectively control access of remote employees, contractors, suppliers, and vendors to resources and
data.
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