At a recent industry summit, Lawrence Pingree, VP Analyst at Gartner, emphasized the importance of emerging cloud security technologies and the need for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) to prepare for their increased use. He highlighted the necessity for CISOs to stay ahead of advancements to align with enterprise goals, with a focus on threat resilience, data integrity, and runtime isolation. Pingree emphasized investing in innovative security strategies as crucial for the long-term protection of cloud infrastructure.

Spending on cloud security is expected to grow by 24% by the end of 2024, making it the fastest-growing segment in the global security and risk management market. This investment surge is driven by the increasing adoption of cloud services, which, despite their benefits, introduce new vulnerabilities and opportunities for attacks.

Within three years, investigations involving cloud and third-party infrastructure are projected to account for more than two-thirds of reported cyber incidents, underscoring the urgency for enhanced protective measures.

Why It Matters: The dramatic rise in cloud security spending underscores the growing dependence on cloud services and the accompanying risks. As businesses increasingly transition to the cloud, CISOs and other technology leaders are implementing stringent security measures to safeguard against evolving threats and ensure the integrity of their operations.

• Increased Usage and Security Investment: By 2027, over 70% of enterprises are expected to leverage industry cloud platforms, up from less than 15% in 2023. This shift necessitates significant investments in emerging technologies to safeguard data, applications, and infrastructure services.

• Emerging Technologies: Cloud security involves various functionalities, including authentication, authorization, encryption, workload security, and access controls. Technologies also address compliance, threat detection, risk management, auditing, and long-term logging for security purposes.

• Cloud-Native Application Performance Platforms (CNAPP): These platforms offer integrated capabilities like runtime threat detection, visibility, control, posture management, software composition analysis, and workload security. CNAPP tools consolidate security needs, accelerate the delivery of new code, and manage infrastructure against emerging threats.

• Impact of Generative AI: GenAI’s role in this field is still emerging, with a focus on AI configuration monitoring, which enhances the tracking of security policies for AI and ML technologies. This is particularly vital in regulated industries like government, finance, and healthcare.

Go Deeper -> The Expanding Enterprise Investment in Cloud Security – Gartner