As cybersecurity and regulatory compliance become the top two biggest concerns of corporate boards, some are adding cybersecurity experts specifically to scrutinize security and risk issues.
Adding a cybersecurity expert directly to the board is just one of the eight Gartner security and risk trends for 2021, many of which are driven by recent events such as security breaches and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In the past year, the typical enterprise has been turned inside out,” says Peter Firstbrook, VP Analyst, Gartner. “As the new normal takes shape, all organizations will need an always-connected defensive posture, and clarity on what business risks remote users elevate to remain secure.”
This year’s security and risk trends highlight ongoing strategic shifts in the security ecosystem that aren’t yet widely recognized, but are expected to have broad industry impact and significant potential for disruption.
Highlighting Trend No. 4: Identity-first security
The perfect storm of several events made identity as the new perimeter a trend, including COVID-19 resulting in remote work and technical and cultural shifts. Identity-first security has been considered the gold standard for a while, but because many organizations remained in more traditional setups, it wasn’t a focus. Now that the pandemic has pushed organizations to fully (or mostly) remote, this trend has become vital to address. The result of these technical and culture shifts is that “identity first security” now represents the way all information workers will function, regardless of whether they are remote or office-bound.