“Hybrid or remote working is the new normal in 2022. Some organisations have even shifted to a virtual-first approach following the learnings from 2020,” said Prateek Bhajanka, senior principal research analyst at Gartner. “This model of working puts the spotlight on cloud, endpoint and identity security as employees become the ‘branch of one’ for an organisation”

Gartner research shows that there is a significant shortage of skilled cyber security professionals. Therefore, end-user organisations in India often engage with security service providers to meet their cyber security objectives. As a result, spending on security services is forecast to total $1 billion in 2022, the highest among all segments. This will be followed by spending on network security equipment and infrastructure protection.

“Covid-19 was a pivotal moment in the way organisations approached risk or prepared for disruptions. Now, security leaders are putting risk management at the centre of their security and business strategies,” said Bhajanka.

Cyber security will continue to be a top priority for Indian CIOs in 2022, as revealed in the 2022 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey. Out of the total CIOs in India surveyed, 64% said they will increase their spending on technologies related to cyber and information security in 2022, higher than the global average of 57%.

“Indian leaders responsible for security and risk management need to adopt an assume breach mindset because security incidents are inevitable in the current era,” said Bhajanka “They should prioritise spending on building detection and response capabilities, and not just technologies. This will help them reduce time to detect and time to recover from incidents.

“In 2022, Indian security and risk management leaders will need to revisit their approach to network security with a focus on technologies such as zero trust network access (ZTNA) for context-based security. They need to envision the future of network security in the cloud.”