Top Priorities for New Jersey CIOs in 2022

Top Priorities for New Jersey CIOs in 2022

Written by Joe Cannata

Posted on January 2, 2022

Today, more New Jersey CIOs are finding themselves in a difficult position. After going through a couple of years of transformation and change, New Jersey CIOs are trusted with instituting digital strategies that will make or break the modern work environment. We are anticipating 2022 to be a major turning point, where some top priorities will be deciding factors for years to come.

2022 will be a year in which CIOs will implement more employee experience platforms and cloud-based work as a major element of remote work. ”With the recent global issues from vendors that are supposed to “just work” (looking at you Amazon), we’ve moved our RMM solution and documentation platforms to in-house, on-prem hosting. We recommend that every company assesses their cloud and on-prem services, and consider a hybrid rather than cloud-only for some essential services”, revealed one IT leader.

2022 will be an instrumental year for CIOs. In 2020 and 2021, businesses and organizations with reactive digital strategies had to brace themselves for the changes that were made to the way we work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. CIOs have to continue to weather the storm and they must focus on their priorities.

What Should Be the Top Priority for CIOs in 2022?

Ransomware Prevention 

Techsperts LLC’s owner, Joe Cannata, is one IT leader keen on the top priorities that New Jersey CIOs should focus on and one of those priorities is ransomware prevention.

• Ransomware prevention and protection remain top of mind leading into 2022.
• Ransomware prevention and protection are important because it remains a leading cause of major downtime and data loss. Either of these can prove devastating to a business.
• Ransomware threats can be minimized by deploying multiple layers of protection throughout an organization. Some of these layers include zero-trust policies, next-gen endpoint protection, email security, employee training, and dark web monitoring.
• While ransomware infections are frequently covered by mainstream news services, many organizations continue to rely on the wait-and-see approach rather than proactively enacting security protections to help mitigate these risks.

Zero-Trust Architecture

Other IT leaders also shared insight into what priorities they believe CIOs should focus on in 2022.

Said one IT leader, ”The top priority for 2022 should be application whitelisting. Application whitelisting is a form of Zero Trust that helps protect endpoints. Computer programs can only run if they are on an approved list. This allows businesses to function while making a hacker’s job much harder. If they do send an infected file to an end-user, then the file will not have permission to run. Some platforms also prevent applications from connecting to the internet if that is not their core function. For almost every employee, PowerShell does not need to connect to the internet.”

”Overall, application whitelisting is just a small part of the cyber security picture. Persistent threat detection, employee training, enterprise EDR, enterprise backup, and a security operations center are necessary to provide a robust defense. Security is a mindset and working with a trusted partner is the key”, said one IT leader.

 I would work with a trusted partner to implement application whitelisting. They most likely deal with larger environments and have worked out the kinks in their system. The process is more user-facing than most security tools and can cause employee frustration. Working with an experienced team is crucial to this process. 

The adoption of the zero-trust approach has accelerated in large part due to the rapid increase of mobile, remote, and hybrid work. ”The top priority for CIOs in 2022 should be ensuring that if their organization is experiencing high turnover (as many are at this time), they are properly managing and securing remote (corporate-owned) devices. Azure Active Directory or Okta are among the solutions available to businesses seeking to improve their security with central authentication and management”, said one IT leader.

It’s an employee’s market in many industries. If you consider your company a part of this trend, being able to wipe, lock, and reset remote corporate devices will reduce IT workload and increase security significantly.

Employee Training

To maintain a competitive advantage in 2022, CIOs must take responsibility for sharpening the skills of their employees and ensuring they are prepared to work in a workforce that has a new set of core competencies.

”By far, the most important priority for any CIO to take into account is employee training. Employees are the weakest link in any security protocol at any place. You could have the best security tools in place, but one bad click from an employee can bring down the whole enterprise. Additionally, a bad decision by an employee, allowing a vendor to bring in their own equipment, for example, can also put the enterprise at risk. There are a few companies that specialize in cyber security training employees. Getting a program in which proactive training is encouraged by giving employees an hour a week to use, as well as training phishing attempts would go a long way towards protecting the enterprise”, said one IT leader.

What Makes These Priorities So Important?

The decisions made by CIOs in 2022 will impact the direction of their business or organization for years to come because we are a part of a workforce that will continue to be defined by innovation, technology, and continuous disruption. These CIO priorities will help guide successful digital strategies for 2022 and beyond.

What Is a Task That Can Be Put Off until Later in the Year?

”Employee phish testing and training could be pushed back if you are not already running it. The hackers have found ways to bypass this training. Mistakes happen and you don’t want end-users to be the final system barrier. Systems such as application whitelisting can help protect employees from themselves and others”, said one IT leader.

Said another IT leader, ”We personally recommend tackling security and infrastructure first, like always. Security being the issue at the forefront for Q1 2022 (continuing to monitor and remediate Log4J exploits + ransomware).”

The trends that CIOs and IT will face in 2022 will shape the future of work. Get in touch with us today to learn how we can support your digital strategy in 2022 and beyond.