Why the growth of remote working demands a new approach to IT security

Today’s business needs to be conducted away from the office. Workers are commuting longer distances, and increasingly asking for flexible working patterns. Senior executives are looking for ways to cut costs on real estate and energy use, as well as to motivate staff, and remote working is a popular way to go. This means that critical business is being transacted on home PCs, on other firms’ computers, or via public internet access points in airports, hotels and cafés.

For IT managers, this new way of working presents serious challenges. Without proper security measures in place, “anytime, anywhere” access introduces a number of risks. A remote user’s access device might be a home computer, a friend’s laptop, a shared computer on another company’s network, a wireless PDA, a smartphone or even a public kiosk. As a result, this unpredictable remote user device has become one of the weakest points of information security.

A recent Computing web seminar, in association with SonicWALL, examined the growing need for new approaches to security driven by flexible working. Technologies such as endpoint and mobile network access control, incoming traffic inspection, and virtual private networks were discussed by our panel of experts, who answered viewer questions on this vital topic.

• Click here to watch the whole of the free web seminar (registration required)