Hybrid work – where employees spend part of their time working remotely and part of their time at the office – has become incredibly popular. In fact, 15% more professional workers now work remotely at least part of the time compared to 2020, rising from 70% to 80%. But this new norm has put hybrid work security front and center for security teams as they determine how to protect sensitive company data.
When people work remotely, they may be using personal devices on home networks, or even public wifi. Hybrid work also accounts for people working while traveling; increasing the risk of stolen or lost laptops, and therefore the risk of sensitive company data falling into the wrong hands.
In this blog post, we will explore how companies can enable this flexible mode of working while ensuring hybrid work security.
The Challenges of Hybrid Work Security
Hybrid work offers many benefits to workers and companies alike, but it also presents new challenges for hybrid work security, including evolving IT resources to this new model, managing a larger attack surface, increased risk of shadow IT, and more complex compliance requirements.
IT Resources
When it comes to IT resources, equipping a hybrid workforce is a different ballgame than supporting an entirely in-office team. For an in-office team, IT can set everything up on-prem, since workers would be accessing sensitive data from desktops at the office. However, when you start mixing in remote work, contractors, offshore workers, and personal devices, things get trickier.
One option is for IT teams to purchase, lock down, and ship laptops around the world to their workers. However, this is an expensive logistical nightmare, especially when it comes to timelines, onboarding, and then offboarding (tracking down these laptops when workers leave the company). Basically, this option is extremely inefficient for making the best use of IT teams’ time and energy, and it bogs down onboarding and offboarding for workers.
The other option is virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). But for anyone who has used VDI, you are likely all too familiar with the many challenges of VDI. While it does secure company data on unmanaged and BYOD laptops, it is also extremely expensive, complex for IT to manage, and frustrating for end-users, as it comes with serious latency.
TLDR; neither of these options are ideal for hybrid work security.
Larger Attack Surface
Another challenge presented by adopting a hybrid work model is that the attack surface increases.
Firstly, since workers are connecting via networks other than the office network, there’s no way to ensure their security. Networks with weak security, such as public WiFi or home networks, are more vulnerable to cyber-attacks, putting company data at higher risk. Additionally, devices that aren’t at the office have higher chances of being lost or stolen. Even leaving a device unattended in public for a moment can cause the exposure of sensitive data or stolen credentials.
And in general, when workers are working remotely, they have less people around to consult on cybersecurity issues, such as checking with a coworker whether an email looks suspicious or not, or getting help to ensure their machine’s security software is up-to-date.
Some IT and security departments use Citrix to try to mitigate these risks and improve hybrid work security, but Citrix is not a foolproof solution. Recent vulnerabilities include privilege escalation, remote code execution, cross-site scripting, and virtual machine disruption.
Shadow IT
Another issue that arises with hybrid work security is the challenge of preventing shadow IT.
Shadow IT is when employees use software, applications, or devices that have not been authorized by the IT department. This may be as innocent and simple as a worker copying and pasting information into an unapproved app to make their lives easier.
While the intentions behind these actions may be good, like trying to improve productivity or make collaboration more seamless, shadow IT presents serious risks when it comes to hybrid work – if security teams don’t have the proper solutions in place.
The key to a good solution that protects against shadow IT is one that makes the user experience seamless so that they never feel the need to work around it. Such a solution would enable the user to use their personal laptop as seamlessly as they’re used to; with a completely local, native experience, unlike VDI, which forces them into a remotely hosted environment that creates a glitchy, latency-ridden experience.
Compliance Requirements
Compliance requirements are another challenge of ensuring hybrid work security.
Many companies in regulated industries like healthcare and finance must stay in compliance with strict mandates in order to avoid fines. Such regulations may include HIPAA, PCI, FINRA, SEC, SOC-2, etc. Many of these regulations have rules in place for the various ways in which data must be secured and protected, since these companies deal with sensitive data like peoples’ personal health information, bank information, and more.
Often, companies will lean on solutions like VDI to maintain compliance, but as we mentioned earlier, VDI is extremely expensive with costs continuing to rise, and employees dealing with VDI are constantly complaining of performance issues – not to mention the complexity that IT teams have to manage. Furthermore, many of these companies have intense seasonality, where they have to hire many workers quickly for short periods of the year. In these instances, VDI is even less ideal.
Companies definitely need a security solution in place to maintain compliance in hybrid environments, but there are better, more cost-effective solutions than VDI for addressing this.
User Experience and Privacy
Last but not least, addressing security in a hybrid work environment presents challenges in the way of maintaining a positive user experience as well as end-user privacy.
When companies require workers to install VDI on their personal laptops, the end-users are negatively impacted in a few ways. First, the user experience of their personal machine is completely different, since VDI relies on a remotely hosted environment that introduces latency in video calls and mouse lag. This causes frustration and can severely decrease productivity. Additionally, users are often hesitant to download such invasive software, since it introduces company monitoring of their personal space. When people feel like their privacy is being invaded by their company, it can also lead to negative feelings towards their employer, eventually increasing attrition.
As we’ve discussed, hybrid work security presents IT and security teams with many challenges that they must overcome. The right technology can help.
Hybrid Work Security Solutions
There are a few different types of hybrid work security solutions companies use to ensure company data security on unmanaged and BYOD laptops.
BYOD for Laptops
The most effective hybrid work security solution is Secure Enclave technology. A Secure Enclave is a separate, secure trusted execution environment on a device. This tech has been featured in Apple devices for the last 10 years, protecting sensitive data like Face ID and Touch ID. Today, the Secure Enclave is the ideal solution for securing BYOD devices, as it isolates work-related and personal activities to prevent cross-access.
A Secure Enclave runs apps and data locally on the endpoint machine, eliminating any latency and creating a completely seamless user experience. It also has extremely smooth onboarding and offboarding, with instant remote wipe capabilities, making it an ideal solution for IT teams. Since this technology completely separates work and personal on the same machine and only grants the company access to what is within the Secure Enclave, end users love it because their personal privacy for everything outside of the enclave is completely protected.
With a secure enclave, IT teams can ensure that company data is secure and compliance is met, while enabling the flexible hybrid work model of workers on personal and unmanaged laptops.
Detailed Policies
One specific feature of secure enclave technology is that it enables companies to create and customize detailed security policies on unmanaged and BYOD laptops.
With a secure enclave, companies can enforce strong access controls to ensure that only individuals who have been authorized can access sensitive data. In addition, companies can implement a principle of least privilege, granting access rights based on specific job roles and responsibilities. Also, a secure enclave means you can regularly educate and train employees on data security policies, best practices for handling sensitive data, and the potential risks of data leaks, while fostering a culture of security awareness and responsibility among employees.
By enabling detailed security policies, a secure enclave is an excellent choice for companies enabling hybrid work.
Seamless Compliance
Another excellent benefit of a secure enclave is that it makes maintaining compliance seamless. By protecting data at rest and in transit, companies across a wide variety of industries can maintain compliance with their specific regulatory requirements.
Experience a Better Way to Manage Hybrid Work Security
Hybrid work is no joke when it comes to securing sensitive company data. Instead of purchasing, locking down, and shipping laptops around the world or dealing with VDI’s many challenges, companies should consider adopting Secure Enclave technology.
Venn’s Blue Border™ is an excellent hybrid work security solution that utilizes secure enclave technology.
Venn is the world’s first purpose-built technology that protects company data and applications on the personal, unmanaged, or third-party managed computers used by contractors and remote employees.
With Venn, work lives in a company-controlled Secure Enclave – visually indicated by Blue Border™ – protecting and isolating business activity from any personal use on the same computer (PC or MAC.) Venn’s customers are empowered to achieve the cost savings and workforce agility of BYOD, while ensuring robust data protection and compliance with regulations like FINRA, SEC, HIPAA, NAIC, and SOC 2.
In this way, Venn is an excellent solution for companies looking to securely enable hybrid work without the complexities of VDI or locking down and shipping company-owned laptops.
If you want to see Venn in action, you can book a demo here.
