GROWING SCALE OF GEOPOLITICAL CONFLICTS AND CYBERCRIME WILL IMPACT IT/OT SYSTEMS OF MANY INDUSTRIAL SECTORS

By: Anton Shipulin, Industrial Cybersecurity Evangelist, Nozomi Networks

What technologies will be the most popular in the IT/ TECH Industry in 2023?

From cybersecurity in general and industrial sectors standpoint, where we are experts, these are some technology trends I see in 2023. The growing scale of geopolitical conflicts and cybercrime will impact IT/OT systems of many industrial sectors, especially energy, oil and gas, military, and airspace. In turn, organizations in the sectors build more effective cybersecurity approaches and demand more advanced cybersecurity technologies.

That includes more deep, timely and intelligent security monitoring of office, data center and process control network malicious and anomaly activities and host activities, including detailed information about assets, hardware, software, their components, and vulnerabilities. This is where processes and technologies of Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) will be evolving by governments, manufacturers, and asset owners, but in

2023 the SBOM maturity will still be low.

The critical situation with cyberattacks will make incident response processes to get faster and more effective, to get more automated and integrating detection, analysis, and response processes, this is where Extended Detection and Response (EXR) technologies will be evolving. Incorporating machine learning and AI, and based on adversary Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) knowledge from MITER ATT&CK framework for Enterprise and ICS.

But at the same time, we will see more IT/OT integration and boundaries fading away, despite inherent risks of it. This will be in the form of industrial controllers’ virtualization, containerization, and cloud adoption.

As a final trend, I see that in 2023 cybersecurity will be integrated more into business risk management strategy of many companies and will be one of the main responsibilities of the C-suite.