{"id":4459,"date":"2021-06-09T14:55:20","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T19:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stratospherenetworks.com\/blog\/?p=4459"},"modified":"2021-06-09T14:55:20","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T19:55:20","slug":"how-to-enhance-security-by-embracing-byod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stratospherenetworks.com\/blog\/how-to-enhance-security-by-embracing-byod\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Enhance Security by Embracing BYOD"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AYou’ve probably heard this security adage: “The perimeter is dead.” Well, I’m here to tell you that the managed endpoint isn’t far behind. Even as a growing number of people in the U.S. get vaccinated and case numbers fall, the pandemic-driven alterations in how and where many of us work have lingered.\u00a0As of April, 72 percent of white-collar employees still reported\u00a0working remotely<\/a>, and 35 percent of all full-time employees who’ve been fulfilling their professional obligations from home at least part of the time want to continue working remote as much as possible, according to\u00a0Gallup<\/a>. It’s clear that many people want the shift to WFH to become a permanent change \u2013 and that also means a lasting adjustment in how we approach endpoint security.<\/p>\n

Securing Endpoints in the WFH Era: Is It Possible?<\/h2>\n

The new reality of remote work as the rule rather than an exception requires security teams to rethink their long-term endpoint protection strategy to account for people relying on potentially unsecured devices to do their jobs. For instance, a\u00a02020 IBM Security study<\/a>\u00a0found that 50 percent of people newly working from home reported utilizing their personal computers for work. Improperly secured devices are a huge risk for any organization, as 70 percent of data breaches start at endpoints and numerous types of malware (e.g., LokiBot, NanoCore and FormBook) specifically target endpoints, according to the Cisco blog entry “Security Remote Work: Protecting Endpoints the Right Way<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

While you can implement endpoint protection solutions and invest in corporate devices to lower your odds of experiencing a breach, in our current work-from-home environment, it’s become essentially impossible to ensure none of your endpoints are compromised. To achieve the highest possible level of security, you have to shift your focus away from enforcing endpoint and toward sandboxing applications and protecting your servers and cloud infrastructure.<\/p>\n

How to Lower Your Breach Risk With Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), Sandboxing and SASE<\/h2>\n

Although it might seem counterintuitive at first, you can improve your security posture by encouraging your employees to utilize their own devices for work. Take the funds you would have otherwise spent on company issued-phones, laptops and so on and give your team members a stipend to select and purchase devices that they like and are comfortable using. Then leverage a secure access service edge (SASE) solution<\/a>\u00a0to minimize your data breach risk level.<\/p>\n

SASE combines SD-WAN functionality with cloud-native security features and is ideal for businesses that rely increasingly on cloud solutions and services, according to\u00a0Cisco<\/a>. This type of solution allows security teams to adjust cost, reliability, performance and cybersecurity for each network session based on user identity and context, as\u00a0McAfee explains<\/a>. Some of our clients have implemented\u00a0secure remote work strategies<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0going serverless<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0Microsoft 365<\/a>\u00a0apps like SharePoint and OneDrive and then protecting their environment with our\u00a0Office Anywhere<\/a>\u00a0offering, which combines a zero-trust framework with SASE and includes the following features:<\/p>\n