COVID-19 has meant businesses have had to work differently. Here’s a Q&A with Malcolm Murphy, Technical Director, EMEA, at the networking product company Infoblox.
Will this shift to remote working become permanent for some enterprises after the crisis passes?
With the UK in lockdown, the majority of businesses have been forced to re-equip their workforce for remote working. Many businesses will have found that remote working worked better than they expected. However, people encouraged to work from home when their employers are not necessarily set up for it, will be using personal devices, ie. laptops or mobile phones, for work purposes. Whether the IT team likes it or not, there has been and will continue to be, a huge increase in the number of shadow IT devices (active devices in use without the IT team’s knowledge) being used by employees, as well as the use of collaboration applications not approved by the company, such as communications apps.
Once things start to level out, I expect that this will accelerate the drive to this form of working being the new normal, or at least a much bigger part of the way we work. Organisations will then have to distinguish what compromises they took in urgent times, which will be imperative to address for long term success. By taking these measures, organisations will be able to implement the next level of security.
Technology has clearly been a godsend to enable remote working to take place. How do you see this expanding and changing?
Fortunately for remote workers, easily accessed devices like laptops, tablets and smartphones are now able to adopt the required technology needed to solve work related problems. In many cases, from the resources provided on personal devices, this eliminates reference to IT security departments. Yet the increased use of IoT devices and remote conferencing services is a major cause for concern as it puts corporate networks at risk. An example of this can be seen from the UK government, who have been hosting their virtual cabinet meetings over one such video conference service just days after another government department deemed it unsafe. The net result from this will be an increase in the use of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) throughout workplaces. People will use what works for them, and while that could become an increasing security risk, the pace is not going to slow down.
We’ve seen both sides of cloud: on the one hand, the convenience and flexibility of simply being able to buy more services and have them instantly on has been an enabler; on the other hand, it’s highlighted the downside of dependence on third-party services. I think we’ll see more use of cloud services, but with more thought about business continuity and multiple service providers. From this, businesses will see consolidation toward the big providers.
For more on Infoblox’s network control products visit https://www.infoblox.com/resources/.
From an Infoblox survey of cyber people:
– Over a quarter (26.55pc) think COVID-19 will have a long-term negative impact on their business;
– Over half (54.87pc) believe COVID-19 will increase the demand for cybersecurity;
– 25pc estimate that 40-60pc of their staff will be remote-workers post COVID-19 (an increase of 20pc from pre-covid estimates);
– Almost a third (31.82pc) don’t have policies in place to prohibit the use of personal apps on work devices; Skype, Zoom or Houseparty; and
– Almost half – 45.45pc – don’t think that businesses should become responsible for their employee’s home network security.
