The new question is not if you’ll be hacked, but what you’ll do when your network and data are inevitably breached. The federal government has not only recognized that these persistent hacking threats are real—investing in cybersecurity to the tune of $13 billion in 2016—but also has realized that the threats will continue to grow and increase in aggression, thus increasing the need for cybersecurity budgets by roughly 45% to $19 billion in 2017.
So what are some of the market drivers you’ll need to focus on? Here are three of them.
1. Mobility and BYOD
More employees are using their personal devices for work, which creates a great challenge to formalize BYOD policies. “Shadow BYOD”—the use of devices/technologies that are not sanctioned or deployed by the designated IT department—increases the risk of compromising the security of agencies and threatens how well extremely sensitive information can be protected.
2. Cloud-Based Security
As federal agencies and departments continue to adopt the cloud to facilitate their needs, cloud-based security will become increasingly important. And the ever-increasing need for cloud security as a service will grow, likely moving to the top of the “needs” list in 2017.
3. Federal Cybersecurity Policies
In the world of IT, everything seems to move at a fever-pitch pace—well, that is, aside from the governing policies, laws and regulations—and the evolution of cybersecurity is no different. As the definition of cybersecurity continues to expand, the need for greater measures of consistency and supervision will grow.
What This Means for Us
As we progress into 2017, look for these changes to drive additional required cybersecurity investment in areas such as mobility, cloud, secure supply chain, product/software development, outsourced IT and more.
Persistent hacking and threats to data security are here to stay, and what’s more, all signs point to these occurrences growing significantly over the next three to five years. When you consider that stolen data can be worth incredible sums and can even be used to unwillingly sculpt the future, it’s clear that significant investment in cybersecurity will be necessary for quite some time. Stay tuned!
