Page 47 - Cyber Defense eMagazine January 2023

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separate initiatives and budgetary allocations from existing security projects. This will be an exciting area
for innovation, and I expect that to continue for the foreseeable future.

AI will be a game changer for cybersecurity.

Increasingly, I've seen bridges built between cutting-edge AI technologies and security initiatives. In
September of this year, CNBC reported that the global market for cybersecurity products using artificial
intelligence is expected to reach $134 billion by 2030. In contrast, the amount spent on it in 2021 was
just $15 billion. Time will tell if that projection is accurate. Still, today it's clear that the ability to cross-
pollinate between AI and security will drive many innovations that those of us immersed in the industry
have not even considered previously.

Alignment with engineering will come into clarity.

New software is being created every day, and too often, security is a secondary consideration that only
comes into play once an application has been entirely built. With companies like Snyk and others who
lead the charge for developer-centric security, I believe a trend is coming into view now, which is about
seamlessly embedding security measures into the engineering process and pipelines. Security will
become an integral part of dev tooling and infrastructure layers, further shifting security “left” and
achieving alignment with development and engineering teams.

Staffing challenges will continue to drive innovation.

In cybersecurity, there are more open positions than there are people to fill them. In the past decade,
there has been a massive boom in digital environments, all of which need to be secured, and there simply
hasn't been enough training to fill the pipeline at the necessary pace. Even with the economic downturn,
demand for cyber talent is outpacing supply. Because of that, we have an opportunity to do things
differently in the cybersecurity world. For instance, innovation in automation will be even more of a force
multiplier when human talent is scarce. Similarly, data-driven insights and intelligence will be more
impactful when manual work ceases to be an option.

It's essential to add that while geopolitical and economic uncertainties may make investors take a more
conservative approach, those same forces have famously driven cutting-edge innovation in the past and
will do so again. Great companies are formed in a down economy. Currently, security is still driven
primarily by conventional technologies that are meant to be used on premises in a traditional
infrastructure environment. Frankly, that's not good enough. Cloud has thoroughly disrupted traditional
computing, requiring people to manage and defend their data differently. This tension will be exacerbated
when productivity and efficiency are put to test with tough economic constraints.

The good news is that there's plenty of room for change and innovation, and venture capitalists will have
many opportunities to back the next great security technology, whatever that might be. Innovation will be

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