Guest article by Andrea Babbs, UK General Manager, VIPRE
2020 has forced businesses to revise many of their operations. One significant transition being the shift to a remote working model, for which many were unprepared in terms of equipment, infrastructure and security. As the government now urges people to return to work, we’re already seeing a shift towards a hybrid workforce, with many employees splitting their time between the office and working from home.
As organisations are now reassessing their long-term office strategies, front and centre to that shift needs to be their IT security underpinned by a dependable and flexible cloud infrastructure. Andrea Babbs, UK General Manager, VIPRE, discusses what this new way of working means long-term for an organisation’s IT security infrastructure and how businesses can successfully move from remote working to a secure and agile workforce.
COVID-19 accelerated the
shift towards Cloud-based services, with more data than ever before now being
stored in the Cloud. For those organisations working on Cloud-based
applications and drives, the challenges of the daily commute, relocations for
jobs and not being able to ‘access the drive’ are in the past for many. Cloud
services are moving with the user – every employee can benefit from the same
level of security no matter where they are working or which device they are
using. However, it’s important to ensure businesses are taking advantage of all
the features included in their Cloud subscriptions, and that they’re configured
securely for hybrid working.
With increased pressure
placed on users to perform their roles faster and achieve greater results than
ever before, employees will do what it takes to power through and access the information they need in the easiest and quickest way possible. This is where
the cloud has an essential role to play in making this happen, not just for
convenience and agility but also to allow users to stay secure – enabling
secure access to applications for all devices from any location and the
detection and deletion of viruses – before they reach the network.
Email remains the most-used communication tool, even more so when remote working, but it also remains the weakest link in IT security, with 91%of cybercrimes beginning with an email. By implementing innovative tools that prompt employees to double-check emails before they send them, it can help
reduce the risk of sharing the wrong information with the wrong
individual.
Additional layers of
defence such as email checking tools, are removing the barriers which slow the
transition to agile working and are helping to secure our new hybrid workforce,
regardless of the location they’re working in, or what their job entails.
For organisations wanting
to evolve into a hybrid work environment, their IT security policies need to
reflect the new reality. By re-educating employees about existing products and
how to leverage any additional functionality to support their decision making,
users can be updated on these cyber risks and understand their
responsibilities.
Security awareness training
programmes teach users to be alert and more security conscious as part of the
overall IT security strategy. In order to fully mitigate IT security risks and
for the business to benefit from an educated workforce, both in the short and
long term, employees need to change their outdated mindset.
Changing the Approach
The evolution of IT and
security over the past 20 years means that working from home is now easily
achievable with cloud-based setups, whereas in the not too distant past, it
would have been impossible. But the key to a successful and safe agile
workforce is to shift the approach of full reliance on IT, to a mindset where
everyone is alert, responsible, empowered and educated with regular training,
backed up by tools that reinforce a ‘security first’ approach.
IT departments cannot be
expected to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals and adapt to new threats on
their own. They need their colleagues to work mindfully and responsibly on the
front lines of cyber defence, comfortable in the knowledge that everything they
do is underpinned by a robust and secure IT security infrastructure, but that
the final decision to click the link, send the sensitive information or
download the file, lies with them.
By focusing on getting the
basics right and powered by the capabilities of the Cloud, highlighting the
importance of layered security and challenging existing mindsets, businesses
will be able to shift away from remote workers being the ‘exception,’ to a
secure and agile workforce as a whole.
