What It Take to Adjust Your Endpoint Security to Fit a Mobile Era?
What will it take to adjust your endpoint security to a new normal—a mobile era?
Here’s the truth: the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on workflows and employee productivity even as businesses attempt to reopen. Returning to the office may actually pose a risk to your employees and partners. In fact, some businesses may wish to continue their work from home (WFH) policies even if they do decide to reopen. However, this poses a distinct challenge to enterprises’ endpoint security policies.
Employees continue to use their own personal devices including mobile devices while performing their roles. On the one hand, this provides several benefits; employees report higher productivity when working on devices with which they feel comfortable. On the other hand, these devices prove difficult to secure under a consistent endpoint security umbrella.
What is the Mobile Era?
According to Verizon Mobile Security Index 2020, 43 percent of companies surveyed admit they sacrificed security for expediency, convenience, or profitability targets. Unfortunately, mobile devices represent this mass sacrifice. While convenient, mobile devices face challenges in terms of data leakage, insecure WI-Fi connections, and network spoofing.
Yet mobile devices aren’t going away from corporate contexts. If anything, with the coronavirus still affecting the world, mobile devices look to supplant personal computers in the workplace whether in the office or at home.
Enterprises must counter these new porous additions to their digital perimeters.
Endpoint Security Adjusts to the New Normal
First, your endpoint security strategy must include virtual private networks. These help secure communications and data transfers, even between mobile devices. Under normal circumstances, mobile devices connecting to personal or public Wi-Fi connections risk interference or malicious interception. VPNs prevent these from occurring, helping to extend on-premise-level endpoint security to remote mobile devices.
Endpoint security also allows for the whitelisting and blacklisting of applications via application control. This helps regulate how applications move between your mobile devices and what information those applications can collect and transfer. Additionally, it can limit or even terminate certain applications deemed suspicious or malicious.
Moreover, endpoint security in the mobile era can help you manage your bring-your-own-devices (BYOD) policies. In fact, some solutions can help your employees segregate their work and personal usage, which assists with data loss prevention (DLP) efforts.
Why the Mobile Era Matters in Your Considerations
The old ways of thinking about endpoint security no longer make sense in the mobile era. Once, simple antivirus software could secure all of a business’ endpoints at once. However, with the rise of mobile devices and WFH, no business can rest on such assurances.
The digital perimeter has become porous with the advent of mobile devices, and the capabilities you consider for your cybersecurity should match this reality. Data loss prevention, application, and secure Wi-Fi match more with the current threat landscape. Your cybersecurity must embody flexibility and threat intelligence so that you never end up trying to fight the last war.
You can learn more about mobile security in our Endpoint Security Buyer’s Guide. We cover the top solution providers and their key capabilities, and we provide a Bottom Line analysis for each.