Back in March when the lock down was first introduced, few businesses really expected that the emergency changes they had to make just to keep employees working from their homes would be required for the long term. The shift was necessary but felt temporary, and most hoped that a return to “normal” would be possible sooner rather than later. But what is becoming clearer, as the business community now takes its first small steps to navigate its way back to work, is that some restrictions are likely to be in place for quite some time. Not only that, the working landscape has shifted significantly, and it is doubtful it will ever be possible to revert to exactly how things were before.
For those IT and business leaders actively considering the long-term viewpoint, security is high on the agenda. New security approaches are clearly needed to respond to the new normal. That means looking at the practicalities of what is possible in order to keep staff working, whilst at the same time ensuring that effective security is maintained.
This is easier said than done as it requires moving away from the enclosed site-based infrastructure and desktop set-up with physical security which so many businesses have relied on for so long. The new normal for work is most likely to involve a hybrid of remote and site-based working. That sounds simple in principle until you consider that prior to the pandemic, many businesses only offered limited remote access to some systems to a small proportion of the workforce. Others offered no remote access at all and everything was protected within the secure site network.
But going forward, there are a host of considerations that impact business data security. The three below are just the tip of the iceberg:
- Remote working could become the only way of working for some employees and, depending on job function, secure remote access will be required for all the systems needed for each role.
- It is likely that security protocols must be evolved to cope with a combination of company devices and individual employees’ own devices. Maintaining security across a mixed estate gives added complexity and will involve a certain amount of trust on both sides.
- The numbers of people working remotely may need to flex and change, perhaps as Government guidelines are eased in or out in response to the spread of disease, or as business requirements and resources are flexed to meet expanding or contracting demand.
The combination of widescale access to various systems along with flexible and changing requirements make the security response more complex than ever.
Join us for a webinar on Tuesday 16th June 2020 at 10am, when we'll be discussing how to build a robust and resilient IT infrastructure that underpins business continuity planning after Covid-19.