CIOopinion

CIO OPINION

Security

Workforce mobility and work from home scenarios continue to expand the IT perimeter , as employees often access corporate resources on personal devices and from public Wi-Fi networks that are not secure . With more applications moving to the cloud – whether sanctioned by IT or not – protecting an organisation ’ s data has become even more challenging .

Given this , organisations must consider adopting a security framework based on the concept that all entities – both inside and outside the network perimeter – should and must be handled with care ( i . e . zero trust ). In practicality , this approach should ensure the identity of an endpoint , then enforce the policies applied to those endpoints with an application aware firewall . What ’ s more , network platforms should be underpinned by a collaborative approach which involves sharing information with other security platforms and dynamically adjusting policies to endpoints on the network .

According to research company International Data Corporation ( IDC ), 55 billion devices will be connecting to networks within the next two years and are expected to generate 79.4ZB of data by 2025 . When you combine that with the irreversible shifts to a remote and distributed workforce , you can see that the network and IT need the right tools to keep pace . And automation , unified infrastructure and security are good starting points to consider these tools . •

46 INTELLIGENTCIO www www . intelligentcio . . com. com