With the right SASE stack, enterprise networks are poised to work from anywhere, securely
Office culture looks different these days. Instead of sterile breakrooms, employees enjoy lunch in their backyards. Rather than driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic, they walk down the hallway connecting their bedroom and home office. Upwork estimates that by 2025, more than 32.6 million Americans will work remotely. That means nearly a quarter of the workforce will be free to do laundry during a conference call.
While this may sound appealing, IT teams left to manage remote work security will find these sprawling networks difficult to protect without a unified solution in place.
The shift to remote work
Remote work solidified its place in enterprise business during the pandemic. Almost overnight, nearly every nonessential worker was thrust into the role of a remote employee. While initially jarring, this was an opportunity for employees and businesses to realize they could still operate effectively without a dedicated workspace. In essence, work became a thing you do, not a place you go.
This shift felt minimal for companies already embracing a “cloud-first” mentality compared to those lacking the equipment, expertise, and funding to support a remote workforce. Network and application access requests were overwhelming, and VPN usage grew 124% between March 8 and March 22, 2020, leaving a backlog that was slowly resolved by limited personnel. Over time, IT teams began to realize that where people were connecting from and how those connections were secured left enterprise networks and corporate data vulnerable.
Remote work security risks
Although corporate productivity has grown alongside the explosion of remote work, a staggering 73% of executives believe remote workers pose a significant security risk to their business. Often, these risks are attributed to unsecured personal devices and home or public Wi-Fi networks whose defenses can be weakened by simple passwords or foregoing necessary security updates. Not immune to common network threats, work-from-home employees must also be on guard against phishing attacks and email scams.
Remote work security concerns are exacerbated by the comfort employees feel in their own space, which can lead to a lack of monitoring, relaxed cybersecurity awareness, and even physical theft.
Protecting enterprise networks without limiting remote options
Despite the risks, one thing is certain: remote work isn’t going away. According to an Owl Labs study, about 16% of companies are already fully remote, operating without a physical office. As that number grows, how can enterprise networks stay protected?
Adopt a zero trust approach
Zero trust security models use micro-segmentation and adaptive security policies to continuously verify users based on identity, location, device, and usage patterns. By isolating user-to-resource access, attack attempts can be easily and automatically quarantined.
In remote work security scenarios, zero trust solutions can protect web and email access and application access for unmanaged devices. Technologies such as remote browser isolation (RBI) create digital air gaps to safely render web data when clicking links. On “BYOD” or unmanaged devices, web application isolation (WAI) technology and privileged remote access (PRA) bring applications into a secure cloud environment to grant access while maintaining security.
Prioritize visibility through SASE
VPN backhaul only gives visibility to a small subset of use cases. This creates issues in remote work environments, particularly as data is accessed from outside the network. A Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution allows IT teams to assign security policies to people no matter where they’re located or what they’re connecting to. In turn, IT teams have increased visibility and monitoring capabilities, which allow them to ensure employees are accessing resources securely.
A SASE security stack is also multifaceted, providing zero trust isolation solutions, category-based enforcement, web security, content disarm and reconstruction, and more, alongside cellular-optimized traffic management solutions — all of which can be managed from a single system.
Educate end users
Undoubtedly, an imminent threat to enterprise security is human error. While mandatory, repetitive training can mitigate risks, simple actions such as changing default passwords or requiring multi-factor authentication can slow or deter attackers.
Finding balance with enterprise security
No matter the industry, employees across the globe can agree that the ability to maintain a lifestyle they love is critical to their job satisfaction. Remote work enables lifestyle flexibility — whether that be working from a coffee shop, in bunny slippers on the couch, or from a five-star resort — but it must be enabled in a way that safeguards company data.
Unlike cumbersome software clients of the past, zero trust solutions are virtually undetectable to the end user and can be implemented without employer-provided equipment. This creates a seamless remote work security experience that allows employees to access necessary resources without jumping through hoops. Not to be left out, IT teams can also hit the “easy button” for network security management through SASE, especially when deploying a unified solution from a single vendor.