17 CYBERSECURITY STRATEGY BELGIUM 2.0 – 2021-2025 Technology trends and risks Digitalization and dependence Organizations are applying new technologies to further develop new opportunities, leading to increased exposure to cyber threats. In reality, all organizations need to protect more with less. Technology Trends and Risks War for Talent Lack of cyber talent can jeopardize our ambition to promote security and privacy in a digital society, as well as the goal of achieving future opportunities that new technologies offer. Technological Developments New technologies provide opportunities for new developments, although their use increases the complexity and virtualization of the ICT environment, and consequently the exposure to emerging cyber threats. 2.2.1 Dependency Organizations are applying new technologies to develop new opportunities and to increase their productivity or efficiency. The increase in the use of these technologies is therefore creating an ever-growing dependence on ICT. This is accompanied by increased exposure to cyber threats. It can also be generally observed that technologies are being deployed at a faster rate than the security for these technologies. Organizations will be more committed to providing and using new technologies than to allocating budgets for their security. It is often overlooked that new technologies are not always extensively tested immediately. It is therefore a big risk to assume that no attacks exist yet or that it is safe to implement and secure the technology in the usual ways. After all, it often takes a few months or years for most attacks and vectors on a given technology to become public and to be properly protected against. Secure development — with attention for security — should therefore be included in the development process of new software and technologies. There is also an ever-increasing reliance on third party providers at every step: development, production, maintenance, and processing. This increases the risk and potential critical impact of what are known as “supply chain attacks”. The interconnection of products can also give rise to “hazardization”.