Congratulations! If you can read this, you also made it to 2022. A year that I hope is full of fortune, a little luck and lots of happiness.

There’s a few things 2022 will probably not be however. Such as the Year of Linux on the desktop, the year IPv6 finally becomes popular, or the year Blockchain becomes the normal way to conduct any form of business, from buying a house to calculating complex user behaviour patterns.

But it’s probably going to be the year someone tries to sell you a quantum computer.

We’ll have the usual cybersecurity headlines. Ransomware is still on the rise, combined with the double extortion approach, where data is copied out of the organisation before being encrypted, meaning criminals can make two demands; one for unlocking, and one for not releasing.

Supply chain attacks as a result of the Microsoft Exchange zero-days, and the Solarwinds attacks are also stern reminders on being quick to react to these headlines, and by having a decent vulnerability management\asset discovery solution. Companies such as Tenable, Rapid7 and Qualys all handle this.

SASE\Web security from the likes of Broadcom, iboss, Zscaler and Netskope continue to make real differences when it comes to protecting remote users, who aren’t in any hurry to return to the office full time. Give your VPN a break and take a look at SASE solutions.

Industrial Control Systems also became fair game for targeting. Vendors such as Tenable, Claroty, Nozomi and Dragos continue to help industries protect their critical infrastructure by specialising in identifying ICS vendor technology such as Siemens, Schneider Electric, Rockwell etc.

But what I look forward to most, is seeing what Crypto Currency does this year. Sure there are hundreds of useless coins out there, who’s sole purpose for existence is to make the initial investors rich while everyone else looses out. There are also some coins that have held their value over the last five years, and continue to see good returns.

Crypto has been good to us here at the Serpent (in fact, we pay our hosting fees with Crypto rewards!), but it also has its down days. As long as you’re in it for the long run, it’s certainly something to consider. We’ll also see the topic of Crypto Currency discussed more in government circles and national headlines.

So plenty to look forward to this year in the world of cybersecurity, stay frosty folks.