Cybersecurity: Trends and challenges of the digital age

Information protection is significant in a world where digitalization is integral to business and everyday life. Investments in information security technologies are becoming both expedient and highly profitable.

Market Overview

According to the analytical company Precedent Research, the global cybersecurity market reached $211.48 billion in 2022 and is projected to exceed $690 billion by 2032, with an average annual growth rate of 12.58% during the forecast period from 2023 to 2032.

The increase in cybersecurity costs is due to many factors, including the constant rise in malicious software (software) volume. Attackers' methods are continuously being improved. Hacker services are becoming more accessible and are often used for competition or quick earnings, which has led to the emergence of the Cybercrime-as-a-Service (cybercrime as a service) model.

Large-scale digitalization of the economy often requires operational solutions, which leads to the release of many products in raw and unsafe form. The pace of digital transformation is outpacing the development of cybersecurity. In addition, the shortage of specialists exacerbates the situation: according to analysts for 2022, there are about 3.5 million vacancies worldwide for narrow-profile specialists in this field.

Thus, the cybersecurity market has no choice but to grow, and companies in this area need to improve and offer new integrated solutions that meet the standards of a rapidly growing digital economy.

Industry trends

Today, companies that do not implement artificial intelligence or biometric technologies into their services, for example, risk being left out, and therefore, trends are forming in the market without which cybersecurity services can no longer be imagined.

Naturally, the primary trends dictated by the market are artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. These technologies automatically detect anomalies and threats, analyze user and system behavior, and predict potential attacks. AI helps to speed up the response to incidents and reduce the number of false positives. Moreover, the human role in identifying and eliminating cyber attacks is significantly reduced.

With the growing number of "remotes" and the widespread use of cloud services, there is increasing interest in the Zero Trust Architecture model. This model assumes a complete lack of trust in any user or device without prior verification, providing additional security and minimizing the risks of unauthorized access.

Cloud security is becoming an important area as more and more companies move to cloud infrastructures. Investing in protecting cloud data and applications helps prevent leaks and comply with regulatory requirements, which is critically important in today's digital world. Data protection and privacy are also important. Companies are strengthening data encryption, access control, and data management measures per legal requirements, which helps avoid hefty fines and maintain customer trust.

Cyber recovery is becoming another critical area that companies are paying attention to. Creating strategies and tools to ensure business continuity and rapid recovery after cyber attacks includes developing incident response plans and data backup. At the same time, the increasing use of multi-factor authentication makes it more difficult for cybercriminals to gain unauthorized access, requiring users to provide additional proof of their identity, which is becoming standard practice for security.

The Internet of Things (IoT — the concept of a data network between devices) and its security require close attention, as an increase in the number of connected devices creates new vulnerabilities. Devices are receiving increasing innovative functions, developing AIoT trends in the market — intelligent network-connected devices. Companies are developing specialized solutions to protect these devices and networks. At the same time, the access control system segment is growing, and the trend toward introducing biometric technologies is becoming more noticeable. The market offers various identification solutions, including face recognition, fingerprint, palm, vein pattern, and retina reading. The main advantage of biometrics is the high level of reliability and accuracy of recognition.

These trends highlight cybersecurity's growing complexity and importance in the face of rapid digital transformation. Investing in modern cybersecurity technologies and strategies is becoming critical to protecting data, systems, and business processes.

Rubrik as an example of a combination of trends

Rubrik, founded in 2013, has quickly established itself as a cloud data management and cybersecurity leader. Since its inception, it has attracted significant investor attention and raised $752 million in an initial public offering.

The company offers a unique approach to data security based on a zero-trust model, which helps organizations increase their resilience to cyber attacks, malicious insiders, and operational failures. The company's product range includes data protection, threat analytics, data security management, and cyber recovery. These solutions are provided through the proprietary Rubrik Security Cloud platform, based on zero trust principles. The platform guarantees full cyber-stability of data in enterprise, cloud, and SaaS applications (Software as a Service — software as a service). The company has attracted new subscription customers and maintained and expanded relationships with existing customers.

At the same time, the company stands out as one of the highest performers in the technology sector in terms of a net subscription retention rate in dollars, equal to 133% as of January 2024.

After the IPO, Rubrik can become one of the market leaders. The revenues from the initial placement amounted to more than $750 million, which allowed the company to strengthen its financial health well. After the IPO, the company has cash on its balance sheet of $880 million and more than $1 billion, taking into account short-term investments.

Rubrik successfully combines current trends in cybersecurity, competent leadership, and a strategic vision of the opportunities that the market dictates. Thanks to an innovative approach and the introduction of advanced technologies, Rubrik gained a foothold in the market and received investments from Microsoft and significant funds at the pre-IPO stage. However, the main risk for the company remains the rapidly changing market and high competition, which requires constant updating and improvement of the proposed solutions to maintain its competitive advantage. It is quite possible that tomorrow, we will see a new player in the market who can present a more flexible system for implementing security systems and receive a lot of trust and funds from IT giants and the financial sector.

What about Kazakhstan?

Cybersecurity is becoming more relevant than ever for Kazakhstan as part of the economy's digital transformation. Information protection is becoming critical with the growing number of digital services and data. At the same time, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the number of cybercrimes has tripled over the past five years. Moreover, in 2023, over 223 million cyber attacks by foreign hackers were recorded; 63% of these attacks were in the public sector.

Investments in cybersecurity protect critical infrastructure and confidential information and contribute to creating a trusting and secure digital environment for businesses and citizens. Kazakhstan must take a leading position in this dynamic and constantly changing field, understand trends, and cooperate with market leaders, ensuring reliable protection of its digital assets and stimulating further development of the digital economy.

Source: Forbes Kazakhstan