Emerging need for visibility across cloud will require ambitious professionals to evolve and adapt


DALLAS, June 9, 2023 - Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global cybersecurity leader, predicts the security operation center (SOC) within organizations will absorb cloud security by 2026.

Security leaders are recognizing that cloud and the way cloud security teams work today are becoming increasingly critical to business and IT operations. As a result, cloud security and the foundational practices of their teams will be absorbed into the SOC to increase efficiencies in the coming years.

"Valuable innovations always cross the threshold and are absorbed into standard operations -- happened with virtualization, and it will happen again with cloud," said Mike Milner, VP of cloud technology at Trend Micro. "The organizations and individuals that lean into this will lead the way."

Leaders who have successfully navigated cloud security are well placed to navigate a similar move to the modern SOC landscape.

Software is consuming everything, creating system infrastructure that is increasingly defined as code and reliant on large volumes of data with automation as the cornerstone for delivering value at increasing speeds. All these principles are foundational to teams building and securing in the cloud, but SOC and IT infrastructure teams' tooling, like cross-detection and response (XDR), also leverage these concepts and can benefit from absorbing the scale, skills, and expertise of cloud teams.

Trend's prediction is that viable SOC tools will grow to include cloud protection capabilities. With the increased inclusion of cloud detection and response (CDR) within XDR platforms, the SOC function will have an increased scope that will also impact leadership qualifications.

Global organizations are set to spend $600 billion on public cloud services this year as the technology increasingly becomes an integral part of standard IT operations. Recent estimates suggest 87% of enterprises have already embraced multi-cloud and 72% are running hybrid cloud environments.

Organizations wanting to leverage the combined strengths of their organizations might look to security partners with expertise in both cloud security and SOC tooling to smooth the transition in addition to these thoughts.

Recommendations for organizations:

Give CIOs more freedom to experiment with handling cloud and cloud security teams
Look seriously at a cloud security leader as the next CISO
Encourage or deliberately connect the leadership of the two teams – via joint executive briefings or having both reports into the CIO
Consider rotational programs for security and engineering teams
Recommendations for aspiring CISOs:

Gain experience in cloud transformation
Pick a cybersecurity partner with experience adopting and integrating technologies between cloud security and SOC tools
Maintain cloud practitioner certifications from partners such as (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, etc.)
Leverage learnings from the cloud like immutability, building from code, and automation to improve security posture and respond quickly
Join Trend Micro live from the floor of re:Inforce 2023 during an AWS Security LIVE! segment that will explore this prediction, recommendations for organizations that want to join this new era, as well as advice for aspiring CISOs who want to champion this shift. Full session details can be found here: https://resources.trendmicro.com/AWS-reInforce.html

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity leader, helps make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Fueled by decades of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, Trend Micro's cybersecurity platform protects hundreds of thousands of organizations and millions of individuals across clouds, networks, devices, and endpoints. As a leader in cloud and enterprise cybersecurity, the platform delivers a powerful range of advanced threat defense techniques optimized for environments like AWS, Microsoft, and Google, and central visibility for better, faster detection and response. With 7,000 employees across 65 countries, Trend Micro enables organizations to simplify and secure their connected world. www.TrendMicro.com.

SOURCE Trend Micro Incorporated