The BlackBerry report states that one-third of organizations question IT infrastructure supporting the remote workforce

It has been a year since the remote migration began, but IT managers are still concerned about the safety of their scattered workforce. A recent BlackBerry report found that 35 percent of organizations are questioning whether their IT infrastructure can safely support their remote employees.

The first big issue is still human error. Although companies have accelerated their efforts to raise security awareness, 58 percent of US respondents and 43 percent of U.K. Respondents stated that the epidemic highlighted skill gaps in security awareness. In many cases, simple tools such as VPNs and basic security information are not sufficient to secure an organization's data.

Top three areas to worry about safety skills gaps

The manufacturing, finance and technology sectors are most concerned about security skills gaps. Source: Blackberry

While the U.S. And U.K. Respondents noted the need to increase employee training, with Canadian companies more concerned about hardware security. Forty-eight percent of Canadian companies listed unsafe home network equipment as their biggest concern. Additionally, 73 percent of healthcare sector managers are concerned about how rapid migration to cloud services will affect security.

According to the survey, 41 percent of Canada's workforce is now working from home, while in the US it is only 19 percent, but due to the population gap, there are more remote workers in the US than in Canada. Once the epidemic is over, 32 percent of Canada's workforce will be completely off, adding to the complexity of the security framework.

The problem is compounded by mixing in individual equipment at work. BlackBerry found that, on average, one in five employees are using personal computers and smartphones for work. Personal devices have always posed a security risk due to a lack of enterprise-grade security. But they pose an even greater threat as they are no longer behind the boundaries of a rigid enterprise network.

Perimeter integration

With future workforce moving towards hybrids, IT managers hope that integrated endpoint security solutions can keep their organization safe from end to end.

IT managers are also concerned about malware spreading devices after returning from lockdown. Most respondents stated that they are considering quarantining the devices and implement appropriate security measures before allowing them to connect to the internal network.

A popular combination endpoint protection appears to be a mixture of mobile threat detection (MTD) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) technologies.

Many organizations today already use EDR. The BlackBerry survey showed that North America and the U.K. In 32 per cent of organizations have some form of EDR solution, with 21 per cent planning to implement it and 31 per cent evaluating its feasibility.

MTD lags behind in adoption but is gaining serious interest in the current security landscape. Currently, 16 percent of organizations use MTD, but 28 percent report that they plan to do so and 31 percent are already evaluating. The report states that MTD will be an important component to prevent private mobile devices from tampering with the organization's internal network.

Nevertheless, with these measures in place, a third of organizations responded that they wanted to avoid having the devices compromised in the first place by using different endpoint security solutions.

More than 80 percent of organizations want an endpoint security suite to include mobile devices.

Organizations want endpoint security solutions available for greater security than traditional computers. The important role of mobile computing is putting pressure on the industry to focus on the security of mobile devices.

But organizations want more. More than 80 percent of organizations want EDR technology to support both traditional devices and mobile devices. BlackBerry hopes that demand will continue in the future as the hybrid / remote workplace continues to thrive.

Given the increasing attack surfaces, with the increasing number of remote devices, organizations want solutions that give them remote access to work devices, including private ones. Although this will expedite troubleshooting and maintenance, it also puts personal privacy in question.

The us Towards, 45 percent of respondents underlined rapid threat identification as the top benefit. Canadian organizations noted its strong user authentication and privilege management, with 46 percent of respondents claiming it as the top feature.

The survey showed that organizations value ease of management more than cost when choosing endpoint security technology. The choice makes sense as a complex, poorly streamlined solution will not only disrupt workflow, but will require more attention, which can drive up costs in the long run.