The end of the beginning: the future of work… and us

Given the difficulty of the past year, there is now a sense of cautious optimism. The sun is shining, a cold spring is behind us, mirages of normal life appear daily. With that in mind, this two-part series takes a look at how enterprise IT can reliably and securely deliver in what is a changed and ever-changing environment.First, the context: the debate around a mass return to the office is underway. The reality that various lockdowns have forced onto business executives is that remote working is not going away and hybrid working needs to be embraced. And when offices do reopen, the use of face-masks, social distancing, employees’ uneasiness about using public transport and other restrictions will make them very different places. A continuation of some form of remote home working is likely. This unpredictability is challenging IT to rethink existing security architectures and identify new, flexible and cost-effective ways to protect the hybrid workforce. Working from home brought new risks. Employees needed access to popular enterprise apps such as Office 365, Box, Salesforce, SAP Concur and others from their personal devices. They were also likely to be using those same devices to access personal apps and a browser to use email, games, news, social media, and banking resources.Attackers have seen an opportunity to steal user credentials from these personal devices that don’t have the same security protections as corporate devices. Malware on an employee device collects sensitive information including company intellectual property or passwords, credit card information, or personally identifiable information (PII), without the user knowing.The SolarWinds attackers took advantage of administrative privileges and the Microsoft Exchange server vulnerability exploitation, both major information technology firms were the subject of a cyberattacks that spread quickly and went undetected for months.The budgets, the cultureFindings from a 2021 Spiceworks survey show the pandemic is a catalyst for change, spurring businesses to continue to invest in technology to support and secure a remote workforce, despite slowing corporate revenue growth. “During the rush to remote work, it became clear that technology is the glue that keeps businesses and employees connected,” said Peter Tsai, senior technology analyst at Spiceworks. “With more people working remotely than ever before and face-to-face meetings out of the question, organisations wouldn’t have been able to maintain business continuity or keep productivity levels high without the many technologies companies rely on… including laptops, video conferencing, VPN, chat apps, internet connectivity and more.”Over half of CFOs plan to make remote work a permanent option according to a recent PwC U.S. CFO Pulse Survey and are investing in technologies to enable that today. At Schroders about 20% of its employees are now back in the office. The business hopes for more. If that number rises to 50% in the future that would be “very positive” CEO Peter Harrison said recently. But the London-based asset management firm, which has about 5,000 employees worldwide, has loosened its rules to make it easier for staff to work from home when they need to. Harrison added: “We have gone forward 20 years in terms of the future of work. People don’t want to come in five days a week, and I don’t think it is helpful for them and I don’t think it is good for them.”According to a Gartner survey, more than 80% of company leaders said their organisations plan to permit employees to work remotely at least part of the time when they reopen.Bring your own… riskBut according to CISCO’s Benchmark Report 2020, organisations are struggling to manage remote workers’ use of phones and other mobile devices.Many employees are using their personal devices for two-factor authentication, and they may well have mobile app versions of IM clients, such as Teams and Zoom. These blurred lines between personal and professional life increase the risk that sensitive information falls into an insecure environment.A Samsung survey highlighted the number of employees using personal devices for work. With 30% of businesses not possessing enough devices to cover everyone that needs one, employees are turning to their own, unprotected devices. This poses a significant risk to IT teams trying to protect their company data. Whether it be file sharing over an unprotected network or downloading malicious apps, the gateways opened when using a personal device cannot be ignored.According to CISCO’s report, 52% of respondents said that mobile devices are the major challenge when it comes to cyber security.So that’s the context – next week, we have some solutions – and you can download Paul Rummery’s guide for remote working here.

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The end of the beginning: the future of work… and us

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The end of the beginning: the future of work… and us

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