Our predictions for cryptography in 2023
2022 was a year of growth and innovation for cryptography in the cybersecurity sector. Futurex capped off the year with innovative new solutions and a wider international presence. We opened new data centers, gained new customers, and established new support teams around the world. With this global perspective, we noticed several trends emerge that we expect will evolve throughout 2023. Join us as we explore them in more detail.
Encryption is more than a good idea—it’s a must
2022 brought innovative new security solutions. But as technology gets more sophisticated, so do attempts to compromise it. From ransomware to phishing, cyberattacks are becoming more common and reaching more organizations than ever. Cybersecurity Ventures estimates the costs of cybercrime to grow by 15% per year, reaching $10.5 trillion annually in 2025. This alone gives organizations incentives to harden their security infrastructure, especially as more and more business moves online. The cloud gives organizations a great way to quickly deploy new cryptographic use cases, such as database or application encryption
Why wait to automate? Scripting saves time.
Enterprise cryptography can be complicated. Fortunately, developers can write scripts to automate repetitive processes. Instead of manually generating and distributing an encryption key, the process can be scripted to take place automatically. Taking Futurex as an example, many of our products come with a software development kit (SDK) that contains interfaces and libraries to help users script their cryptographic operations to save time and effort. As cryptographic infrastructure grows, savvy security architects will look for better automation options to keep things running smoothly.
Centralize and consolidate: a recipe for cryptographic efficiency
A couple of decades ago, organizations had to acquire separate cryptographic modules for separate use cases. Within the last decade, HSMs have gained the ability to fulfill multiple use cases at once. Futurex’s Vectera Plus was the first on the market to feature HSM virtualization, further expanding the capabilities of HSMs and bringing more value to users.
Today, cloud options give organizations the ability to deploy and manage entire cryptographic infrastructures from a single pane of glass. The ability to simplify cryptography is even more important given the risk of IT sprawl: the proliferation of IT solutions and secrets that can, when left unchecked, pose a threat to security and efficiency. Organizations dealing with even minor forms of IT sprawl will look for unified, single-vendor cryptographic platforms that help them pare down their infrastructure while gaining functionality.
The future of cryptography is cloud-based
Organizations that move their cryptographic infrastructure to the cloud realize tons of new benefits and possibilities. The biggest financial motivation for migrating to the cloud is to get the benefit of an operational expense (OpEx) model rather than the more traditional capital expenditure (CapEx) model tied to on-premises HSM deployments. Rather than being locked into a particular vendor, organizations can easily switch cloud providers should the need arise.
The biggest functional reason to move to the cloud is to take advantage of special functionality that only really exists with cloud deployments. One example is service-oriented architecture; being able to “borrow” the infrastructure of a large provider to develop innovative new cloud-based services for customers. Another example of cloud-specific functionality is cloud key management and BYOK, where organizations have the ability to control their own encryption keys.
In summary
This next year is likely to demonstrate a few trends with roots stretching back into 2022: hardened infrastructure, more automation, centralized cryptography, and increased cloud migration. These trends all have one thing in common: they demonstrate the industry’s enduring drive to refine its systems, to make them more efficient and secure. And efficiency and security have one thing in common as well. As organizations save time and mitigate cyber risks, they reduce expenses both in the present and in the future.
