Since the global pandemic first swept across the world, most companies have met the challenge for remote collaboration in their businesses to some extent. With the continued office restrictions and closures, the impact of employees suddenly working remotely continues, and our responsibility to manage this new world of working in a secure manner is paramount to continue conducting business.
Rethinking Your Enterprise Security Strategy
The demand for remote enablement is still strong, but months after companies across the world were plunged without warning into an accelerated digital journey, it's clear we must rethink our digital security strategy to meet new and evolving challenges head-on:
- Attackers are using social engineering to capitalize on users' fears, deploying COVID-19-themed lures to deliver phishing campaigns and malware.
- New ways of working and collaborating with colleagues, partners and customers mean more data-sharing across an expanded universe of identities and services, all of which has increased a company's potential attack surface.
- Employees' longer-term approach to remote working requires us to ensure that they are educated, aware and practicing secure working habits.
- On top of it all, the support requirements for remote workers and higher network and infrastructure costs are straining IT budgets.
How do companies meet these challenges while preparing to thrive in a world of commerce that has moved online?
Respond. Reset. Renew.
It's time to build the next generation of a secure enterprise, one that is ready for whatever comes next.
By adopting an adaptive approach to security, one that includes both immediate threats and the evolving nature of online commerce and global supply chain vulnerabilities, we can create a coordinated, integrated approach to cybersecurity that stretches across the enterprise environment.
This longer-term, strategic approach includes three elements:
Respond.
Enabling secure remote and hybrid work remains an important component. Increasingly sophisticated threats will always make a strong, adaptive response foundational to a secure system. Artificial intelligence combined with deep expertise is key to maintaining an end-to-end shield of protection.
Reset.
The entire world of commerce is changing before our eyes. Businesses are adopting new product lines. Supply chains are moving across the world and back again. Customers' expectations for online experiences have never been higher. Partnering closely with the business to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the road ahead keeps security considerations at the center of critical decisions.
Renew.
With a solid security foundation in place and security professionals at the table as the future path of the company is developed, we earn the opportunity to advocate for a next-generation, coordinated security platform that includes everything from secure cloud services, best-of-breed mobile collaboration tools and data classification protocols to end-to-end encryption, identity protection, threat protection and B2B readiness.
This type of comprehensive security ecosystem ensures that tools work together instead of against each other. It allows us to manage risk in a world of ubiquitous collaboration that includes vendors, partners, customers and nefarious bad actors.
This whole-of-universe approach to security supports sustainable remote and hybrid-remote working environments, protects supply chain and online commerce and provides hybrid-remote security and compliance at scale.
I suspect our world is going to become even more complex. Threats to the security of our systems will continue to evolve. But by working side-by-side with our business leadership, advocating for a comprehensive, integrated approach to long-range security, continuous education programs and taking full advantage of best-of-practice security technologies, I am confident we can create a safer and more secure online environment in which to conduct business.
Author Bob Bruns is chief information & security officer at Avanade. Read more from Avanade here.
