The pandemic has underscored how important a flexible and secure digital workplace is. As stay-at-home orders were issued, companies needed to quickly transition all their employees to working at home so they could stay in business. The Global Work-From-Home Experience Survey found that 88% of workers surveyed are working remotely more than one day per week. Of those surveyed, 68% feel they are successful at working from home.
This transition to the digital workplace means employees are no longer working behind the corporate firewall. Users are exposed to increased threats as they operate from vulnerable endpoints, such as laptops in their home offices.
In response to increased risk, companies need to rethink their approach to security by exploring the benefits of cloud-delivered security.
Remote Workers: A Boost for Business
Remote workplaces are part of an overall transformation that can lead to efficiency, productivity, and employee satisfaction. Before the pandemic, remote employees were able to achieve a more attractive work/life balance. They could work around school meetings and doctor appointments or work from coffee shops or while on the train.
After transitioning to working from home, employees noticed they were gaining 30 minutes of productivity each day because of fewer workplace interruptions.
Remote workers expressed greater satisfaction because of the flexibility of working from home. According to the survey, 77% of remote workers want to continue working from home when the crisis has been resolved.
Remote Workers: The Internal Threat
While working from home can be beneficial to employees and businesses, it comes with a dark side: increased security threats. Employees unwittingly browse malicious websites, open emails infected with malware, and click on attachments contaminated with ransomware. In a remote working environment, just as in a physical workspace, employees become internal threats when they fall for phishing scams.
How can a business protect users from falling victim to ransomware or other cybersecurity threats? Protecting users is especially challenging when they are no longer protected by company firewalls.
Under the Security Umbrella
To protect remote workers, companies need to secure their internet connections. Cloud-delivered security allows organizations to protect workers no matter where or when they are working. Secure access service edge (SASE) protects every internet connection and every device used by employees.
Cisco Umbrella is a leading SASE solution. As its name implies, Cisco Umbrella provides a unified and overarching approach to protection. A single integrated appliance protects all your remote workers and their devices. Cisco Umbrella exposes security blind spots by using threat intelligence to identify cyberattacks as they emerge, preventing them from being successful. As a cloud-based solution, Umbrella is easy to manage and provides instant failover on the off chance that data and applications are stolen or compromised.
Get Under Our Security Umbrella
As the Work-From-Home Experience Survey shows, working remotely is likely to continue to trend, even after the pandemic. If Cisco Umbrella seems like the ideal security solution for your company, you’ll need to work with a partner that can implement the solution correctly.
FirstLight offers Managed Cisco Solutions as a Cisco Premier Certified Cloud and Managed Service Provider. Our Cisco partnership is part of our dedication to providing network and cloud services that perform at a high level and protect your company’s resources.
We can work with your company to determine what solutions will help protect your remote workers. FirstLight can design and implement a strategy using tools from leading technology companies, such as Cisco.
Want access to certified Cisco experts? Reach out to get more information from FirstLight.
