ASAVIE GLOBAL CXO STUDY 2020: The Future of the Secure ... · 41 The Future of the Secure Office...

ASAVIE GLOBALCXO STUDY 2020:

The Future of the Secure Office Anywhere

Contents

Executive Summary4

The Impact of COVID-19: What Lies Ahead? 6

The Future of Work: Employee Empowerment and the Role of Remote Access

12

Rethinking Enterprise Mobile Security Management

20

The Future of Mobile Security - Branch of One

30

Key Takeaways 37

Research Methodology40

Foreword3

ForewordWe are seeing years of societal shifts squeezed into a matter of months. This pandemic has been a water-shed moment and its impact goes far beyond just an ‘economic crisis’ - it is first and foremost a ‘humani-tarian crisis’ and the economic crisis is a fallout of it. So, any measures that are considered for a recovery, require taking the human dimension into account.

With stay-at-home orders, office and school closures, we have all been learning new ways of working, learning and coping. Travel bans mean that as borders have shut down, digital is creating a new level playing field in terms of globalization.

With businesses looking ahead towards a recovery phase, our research shows that priorities are focused on improving Employee Experience and a determined impetus towards driving digital transformation.

Digital engagement using a variety of collaboration tools and devices is taking on a new dimension. The exponential increase in digital and remote working technologies has resulted in organizations becoming more susceptible to the growing threat of cyber-attacks. 44% of orga-nizations participating in the Ecosystm and Asavie Global CXO Study on the Future of the Secure Office Anywhere acknowledged that they had faced cyber-attacks during COVID-19, specifically due to remote working - and 87% of these organizations stated that their employee devices had been compromised.

As businesses, we need to question the overall strategic alignment of our mobile security and enterprise networking policies - are these geared towards what has effectively become the new normal? There is a growing need to be able to secure and manage mobile devices in a manner that is agnostic of the device or the network.

The ‘Branch of One’ is a new way to keep Employees connected, en-abling Office Anywhere by delivering secure, frictionless access to all business and corporate resources, with full mobility.

Stay Well. Stay Safe.

AMIT GUPTACEO, Ecosystm

Executive Summary

Organizations have faced an unprecedented crisis this year – they have been forced to make large-scale changes to their business processes and employee strategies to survive the initial impact of COVID-19.

But most organizations have not restricted themselves to cost reduc-tion and business retention measures. They have maintained a firm eye on the future and accelerated or re-aligned their digital transfor-mation journey - enhancing the experience for both employees and customers.

Changing business requirements over the last couple of years had al-ready begun to see a shift in cybersecurity priorities, but COVID-19 has accelerated this shift as organizations face a new threat land-scape. The Global CXO Study on the Future of the Secure Office Anywhere with feedback from over 1,000 CXOs across more than 20 industry verticals, is perhaps the first comprehensive global study to examine the key business priorities in 2020 and analyze the impact of COVID-19 on organizations’ dynamically changing Future of Work strategies and security concerns. The study is backed by Ecosystm’s holistic 360⁰ Future of Work practice that enables businesses to adapt, pivot and thrive in what has become the new way of working.

Focused on Medium & Large Enterprises

N=1,005(UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED)

A Global Study

North AmericaAsia Pacific EMEA

10% 50% 40%

Medium enterprises(250 - 999 employees)

Small enterprises(100 - 249 employees)

Large enterprises(more than 1,000 employees)

8% 55% 37%

Enterprise networks have expanded - and need to ca-ter to remote workers who are increasingly beginning to operate as mobile branches. Technology leaders need a new way to manage the dynamic access needs of businesses that are progressively becoming more digital. They need to make mobile-connected devices easier to secure and manage - using the same policies and security, irrespective of the type of device or the network. These mobile connected devices need to be managed as a ‘Branch of One’.

This report presents the key findings of the study and analyzes the market perceptions of Office Anywhere and the need for a ‘Branch of One’, which will be the foundation of enterprise mobile security in the future.

• Organizations are forging ahead with their transformation plans post COVID-19. However, scaling endpoint security was the biggest pain point for organizations during the COVID-19 pan-demic. A focus on digital transformation will further accelerate uptake of cloud services, mobile applications, and remote data access. This has led organizations to increasingly focus on threat analysis and intelligence, and identity and access management (IAM).

• Many organizations across the globe acknowledged that they faced cyber-attacks during COVID-19, specifically due to remote working. Organizations should see the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to rethink cybersecurity initiatives holistically for fixed and mobile assets. While security should remain a key focus - flexibility and ease of use are also important features for a successful and agile digital transformation. Organizations need “frictionless” security and access solutions to create the best possible user experience for employees.

• Traditional and legacy network technologies will be inadequate for organizations to support remote workers and branches, as endpoint devices extend beyond PCs and laptops as the new norm. Organizations should no longer treat mobile devices as being separate from the WAN – in-stead, they should be part of the network in the same way as laptops and other devices.

• The Future of Work will mean enhanced support for remote workers - at temporary or home offices, ad-hoc points of sales or employees on the go. This means that organizations must secure devices, irrespective of where people work from and irrespective of the network they use. Every employee or device should be treated like a Branch of One.

5 The Future of the Secure Office Anywhere

Branch of One enables Office Anywhere by delivering secure, frictionless access to all business resources, with full mobility - meeting the security and manageability requirements of CIOs and CISOs.

Key findings:

THE IMPACT OF COVID-19:

What Lies Ahead?

As organizations begin to charter their journey to recovery, they will look to leverage digital technologies - this will require a re-evaluation of their cybersecurity practices.

Organizations across the world were largely unprepared for the scale of the changes that they have had to

make to their business processes and employee strategies to survive the initial impact of COVID-19. Busi-

ness continuity and enabling remote working were some of the challenges that organizations faced, but the

bigger challenge was cybersecurity management (Figure 1). This was compounded by the sharp increase in

the cyber threat landscape.

FIGURE 1:

Cybersecurity Key Challenge Faced Due to COVID-19

What were your top 3 major pain points because of the recent COVID-19 pandemic? (Multiple Responses)

Scaling endpoint security


The sudden increase in the number of employees working remotely left IT and cybersecurity leaders scrambling to scale their endpoint security solutions, especially in organizations with more branches. As devices proliferated, in effect each branch office became multiple branches.

QUESTION:

The market has behaved very differently in its approach to the COVID-19 pandemic from what was seen during other crises such as the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Back then, the top business priorities were predominant-ly cost reduction and business retention. While these are still important today, organizations have been more forward-thinking and strategic in their approach.

38%

33%

31%

50%

26%

44%

Maintaining business continuity

Protecting against security vulnerabilities

Less than 100 branch offices 100 or more branch offices


An Impetus for Digital TransformationThe initial measures in response to COVID-19 were to ensure business continuity and manage the sudden shifts in business processes. Looking ahead, the top three business priorities for organizations are improving the customer experience (CX) and the employee experience (EX) and focusing on the digital transformation of their organizations (Figure 2).

Customers have evolved in the last few months. They do not only consider cost and features now – but are likely to be more loyal to companies that show more empathy and are able to solve their problems. While technology is a key enabler to enhancing CX, there is a strong co-relation between employees and the CX that organizations can deliver.

Organizations have been strategic in their journey to recovery after COVID-19. Cost reduction is rated as the 6th business priority, going forward.

Innovation/Improvement of

products/servicesImproving Customer

Experience (CX)

Improving Employee Experience (EX)

Driving/Re-focusing digital transformation

Revenue growth/Winning & and retaining

customers

52%

Cost Reduction/Improving margins

FIGURE 2:

Business Priorities Looking Ahead

61% 56% 55% 53%

What are your top business priorities for the rest of 2020? QUESTION:

49%

Employee expectations have also changed - and business and human resources (HR) policies, and technology are working at tandem to improve the EX. Based on their experience during recent months, organizations have been forced to reevaluate what drives EX. Traditionally, EX was thought to have been founded on three main pillars: Salary, Recognition, and Job Satisfaction. COVID-19 has shown that factors such as flexibility, social cohesion, effective communication, trusting relationships, and individual purpose are almost as important for employee well-being and productivity. EX requires “soft”, people-driven strategies. However, CIOs and CISOs need to make sure that the technology to support these objectives are available, usable, and secure.

Many organizations globally were already focused on digital transformation before COVID-19. But the pandem-ic and the response to it has accelerated these efforts. The digital transformation initiatives are often closely linked to improving CX and EX. There are several examples that have come to the fore during COVID-19 - for ex-ample, while brick and mortar stores were forced to shut down during the restrictions, retailers that were able to scale their eCommerce presence and implement initiatives such as curb-side pickups - such as Best Buy and Walmart - thrived. These initiatives have transformed industries, while keeping employees safe and delivering the CX that customers expect.


A focus on digital transformation has accelerated the uptake of cloud services, mobile applications, and remote data ac-cess. An increasing amount of data is being made available across potentially vulnerable attack surfaces. Evolving busi-ness requirements over the last couple of years required a re-evaluation of cybersecurity measures - again, COVID-19 made that re-evaluation more urgent.

The threat landscape has also changed dramatically. Sud-denly, employees were forced to use devices that were no longer on the enterprise network, and the threat of human error or lack of due diligence increased as employees strug-gled to perform despite the new circumstances. Although data and information security, and cloud security have re-mained top concerns both before and after COVID-19, threat analysis and intelligence, identity and access management (IAM) as well as governance, risk and compliance (GRC) have now moved to the fore (Figure 3). The shift makes sense. With an increase in remote workforce, organizations had to find new ways to access, store and share corporate data, to collaborate across teams, and to connect with customers.


Please identify the security concerns before and after COVID-19. (Multiple Responses)

QUESTION:

FIGURE 3:

COVID-19 has Shifted Cyber Focus

Data/Information Security

56%57%

Network/Infrastructure Security

47%47%

Cloud Security

53%56%

Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)

40%26%Pre COVID-19

Post COVID-19

Application Security

44%52%

Threat Analysis and Intelligence

47%35%

Identity and Access Management (IAM)

45%34%

COVID-19 exposed the shortcomings of existing security measures, requiring organizations to shift focus on threat analysis & intelligence and IAM. Organizations were also more concerned about how sensitive data was being managed - especially in markets with strict regulations, such as the EU, Australia, and Singapore.

Implications for CIOs, CISOs and CFOs

There is no going back. It is very unlikely that the workplace will ever go quite back to where it was before the pandemic, and it is now vital to have the ability to support remote workers, temporary office locations, and ad-hoc and mobile branches. Your organization may be at a competitive disadvantage if you cannot do this in a flexible and secure manner.

Secure access is an enabler.COVID-19 has accelerated the need to focus on digital transformation with EX and CX as major cornerstones. The key component of making your CX strat-egy come to life is your people. Customers pay for your products or services, but it is your people who can really deliver the experience. It will all be about enhancing your EX - so the ability to provide a seamless experience to em-ployees to access all corporate resources from anywhere, as if they were in the office, becomes critical. Secure and flexible connectivity does not in itself create better EX, but it is a necessary enabler.

Accept that your enterprise network has expanded. Increasing mobile workloads and Office Anywhere means that the enterprise private network can no longer just be PCs/laptops. All enterprise endpoints must be considered as part of the enterprise network and your security and authentication solutions must be able to handle this.


THE FUTURE OF WORK:

Employee Empowerment and the Role of Remote Access

The Future of Work will require that full access can be granted to all users, whether they are working from home, setting up a temporary or permanent satellite site, or are in transit.

Before COVID-19, organizations had an outdated view that remote employees are distracted and unpro-

ductive. The global crisis proved them wrong. The sudden shift to the work-from-home model brought out

the best in employees, and some organizations have noted an increase in employee productivity. But to be

able to continually bring out the best in them, it is important to understand the challenges and meet them

head on. To keep productivity up in the Future of Work environment, organizations need to get better at

empowering their employees so that they, in turn, feel better enabled to serve customers.


For a frictionless experience, employees or other users should no longer have to download and install software or collect and install extra hardware.

To empower remote and nomadic workers it is crucial that they have full and unfettered access to all relevant data and applications in the organization. The Future of Work will re-quire that full access can be granted to all users, whether they are working from home, setting up a temporary or per-manent satellite site, or moving or travelling around.

This access must work, be quick and easy to set up, and be scalable as the workforce changes in size and behavior when adapting to a changing environment. It should also be frictionless - access and connectivity should be provid-ed without interfering with the user experience. In essence, the goal should be to make the entire process easier. To make it truly frictionless, employees or other users should no longer have to download and install software or collect and install extra hardware.

Unfortunately, while organizations consider EX a key prior-ity, they do not tend to afford much value to user-friendly aspects when they evaluate products and services that can support their nomadic workforce. Clientless access solu-tions and zero touch configuration of remote workers rank last of the product capabilities that they evaluate (see Figure 4).

Large organizations tend to appreciate ease of use more than smaller organizations. They have faced practical issues when managing a large number of devices. They also tend to rely more on private and hybrid cloud environments and have considerably more applications, data and platforms to manage.


FIGURE 4:

Valuing the Right Product Capabilities to Empower Remote Workers

27%

23%

Full visibility of all traffic for fixed

and mobile devices (OS agnostic)

26%

22%

Secure internet experiences

meeting single remote worker

needs

27%

21%

Centralized policy

management

Integration into the

enterprise WAN

26%

20%

Proactive threat protection for

remote workers

25%

20%

Zero touch configuration

of remote workers

18%

9%

Client less access

solution

16%

6%

What value would these product capabilities have for your organization? (where 1=irrelevant & 10=extremely relevant)(Representing those who rate as extremely relevant)

QUESTION:

Less than 100 branch offices 100 or more branch offices

Organizations with more branch offices find clientless access solutions significantly more valuable. They face practical difficulties in installing clients on remote devices and managing more apps and data.

With the increase in dispersed and nomadic workers, more organizations will feel the pain of provisioning devices at scale.

An Essential Shift in Security Frameworks The Future of Work environment will see an increasingly remote and nomadic workforce. With the increase in the number of mobile users and applications - as well as the frequency of access to business resources - organi-zations will need to implement policy-based cybersecurity measures. Employees will expect access to business resources from anywhere, anytime, in a secure manner. In the past, North American organizations were quick-er to adopt mobile as part of their strategy given the uniformity of the market. EMEA and Asia Pacific on the other hand, have been hampered by factors such as roaming costs and lack of infrastructure, in some markets. All organizations across the globe expect a steady increase in remote workers over the next 3 years (Figure 5).

FIGURE 5:

Organizations Expect Remote Workers Needing Cybersecurity Support to Grow

The Future of the Secure Office Anywhere

89% North America

93% EMEA

94% Asia Pacific

91% of organizations expect an increase in remote workers needing cybersecurity support. Organizations across all regions are now pursuing a “Mobile First” approach and will support the cybersecurity demands of more mobile workers in the next 3 years.

Will the percentage of your mobile workforce needing cybersecurity support change in the next 3 years?

QUESTION:

15

The operational and security related challenges are real. Cyber-attack incidents during COVID-19, specifically due to remote working, have seen a rise. It is likely that the percentage of organizations that faced an attack is higher - many are not forthcoming or even aware of such attacks.

Cyber-attacks can have business impacts such as theft of business data and destruction or im-pairment to financial data, creating extended business interruptions. The ramifications can be far-reaching including financial and reputational loss, compliance breaches and potentially even legal action. Exposure to the public internet is a concern and enterprises will need to re-evaluate how they can extend their private networks to close the vulnerability gap. However, across all regions compromised devices remain a major concern (Figure 7).

The Future of the Secure Office Anywhere16

FIGURE 6:

Industries More Susceptible to Cyber-attacks During COVID-19

Media & Telecom

62%

Financial Services

60%

Health & Life Sciences

50%

Retail, Distribution & CPG

49%

Education

48%

Has your organization suffered a cyber-attack during COVID-19 due to remote working? N=439

QUESTION:

44% of organizations acknowledged that they had faced cyber-attacks during COVID-19 specifically due to remote working. Industries that had to pivot fast to provide essential services were more susceptible.


FIGURE 7:

Globally Devices Face More Cyber-Attacks During COVID-19

69%

8%

15%

62% 58% 49% 55%

42%

13%37%50%25%

27%46%52%

What was the target of your cyber-attacks? N=439

QUESTION:

N America EMEA Asia Pacific

DDoS/Downtime Compromised devices

Breach of data Damage to brand reputation

Loss of business

Although the types of cyber-attacks vary significantly across regions, compromised devices stand out as a consistent global challenge. This underlines how important securing mobile devices have become in combating cyber-attacks.


Organizations are aware that a robust mobile security solution will help them achieve their business priorities. As many as three quarters of organizations rate mobile security as an important or very important part of their digital transformation strategy (Figure 8). The move towards “Mobile First” has already resulted in improved enterprise mobile security, but secure mobile experiences will be a core element of the business environment going forward – especially driven by employees engaging through mobile applications and services from re-mote locations.

FIGURE 8:

Importance of Mobile Security in Digital Transformation

50%

36% 37% 26%

41% 8% 1%

1%

100 and more branch offices

Less than 100 branch offices

Not importantSomewhat importantImportantVery important

How important is enterprise mobile security in your organization’s digital transformation? (where 1=not important at all, & 5=very important)

QUESTION:

Distributed organizations have traditionally been more risk aware when it comes to having multiple devices and endpoints on the corporate network. What is worrying is that a quarter of organizations with fewer than 100 branches consider enterprise mobile security as relatively less important.

Implications for CIOs, CTOs, and Directors of IT/Network/Security services

Be ready for more changes.Organizations have had to swiftly adapt to a remote working model, but it is still unclear how the remote working landscape will evolve. Ultimately, many organizations will adopt a blended model of work, where employees will have a greater choice in their work location. It is important to make investments that can be scaled up or down depending on what model becomes prevalent in an organization. The blended work model that the organization will finally adopt should also be evaluated from a security perspective before being ad-opted in the HR policy.

The future workspace is all about empowerment. COVID-19 has accelerated the change towards a more flexible work environ-ment, but it has also drawn attention to how stressful the remote working experience can be for employees. To handle future eventualities and con-tinue to have a productive workforce, there must be a concerted effort to provide the best possible employee experience. Remote access needs to be easy, quick and comprehensive for a frictionless experience and bypass the need to download and install clients or attain company hardware.

Set cybersecurity as an organization-wide goal.As organizations accelerate and re-focus their transformation strategies, now is the time to evaluate if the right cybersecurity strategy is in place to achieve their goals. CIOs and CISOs will need to educate the CEO, Board, and other key stakeholders of the business risks associated with having the majority of employees on uncontrolled networks. Breaches can have immense financial and reputational impact. Mobile security being a core element in the digital transformation for organizations, needs to be evaluated holistically. Organi-zations need to invest in solutions with embedded security for every employ-ee from anywhere, anytime.


Rethinking Enterprise Mobile Security Management

IT and cybersecurity leaders will need to ask themselves whether their mobile security strategies are appropriate for the evolving business priorities, the ever-changing threat landscape and a seamless employee experience. To answer this question, they will need to examine their security frameworks.

Enterprises Need to Look ‘Outside of the WAN Box’ An organization’s reliance on legacy network technologies and adoption of newer cloud-based network services can be illustrated by its use of wide area network (WAN) to connect branch offices, remote locations, cloud/data centers, etc. The predominant WAN technology implemented today to connect multi-sites is remote access virtual private network (VPN) (Figure 9). Software defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and point-to-point ded-icated networks are tied for second place. The adoption of newer cloud-based WAN services such as network-as-a-service (NaaS), zero trust network access (ZTNA), and secure access service edge (SASE) is relatively low.

Many businesses have moved away from the more tradi-tional technologies such as the telecom offered point-to-point private networks and MPLS services that captured much of the market in the first decade of this century. Or-ganizations with large on-premises data centers and private clouds in particular, are making the move to implement SD-WANs because of their relatively greater level of flexibility, dynamic routing, and agility; and we see noticeably higher adoption of SD-WAN in large organizations.

We see a clear disconnect between the focus on digital transformation and the WAN technologies they use. But we also expect use of SD-WAN, NaaS and ZTNA to grow as or-ganizations move towards hybrid or public cloud setups in their push towards digital transformation and as their need for flexibility and scalability grow. It should be noted that these technologies are not mutually exclusive but can com-plement each other.

As we have seen earlier, scaling endpoint security was the biggest pain point for organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. This fact alone is a good indicator that the pres-ent network solutions will not be able to cope with future workloads and work patterns.

The big question organizations need to ask themselves is whether their legacy networks can support their evolving business priorities.



FIGURE 9:

Disconnect Between Digital Transformation Goals and WAN Technologies


Point-to-point dedicated private networks

Remote access Virtual Private Network (VPN)

Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN)

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)

Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)

Network-as-a-Service (NaaS)

Secure Access Security Edge (SASE)

86%28%

17%

82%

50%

46%

59%

23%

73%

26%

59%60%

19%9%

16%13%

15%

10%7%

2%

9%

Has your organization implemented any of these WAN technologies? (Multiple Responses)QUESTION:

Although Asia Pacific has seen high adoption of SD-WAN, VPN and P2P dedicated private networks remain the main WAN technologies overall. An increased focus on EX will force organizations to re-evaluate their approaches towards more flexible technologies, such as ZTNA, NaaS and SASE.


When asked which mobile estate would benefit the most from being managed inside the WAN, the home office was top of the list (Figure 10). Although many home offic-es might be connected to the organizations through fixed broadband networks, there is an implicit assumption here that they are mobile, with the wireless connections being either cellular or through Wi-Fi networks. Organiza-tions need to distinguish between the connections made through a mobile operator’s cellular network with sub-scriber interface module (SIM) based devices, with supe-rior security and control; from mobile devices connected through public Wi-Fi networks with potential gaps in se-curity and the risk of exposure or loss of enterprise data.

FIGURE 10:

Home Offices Benefit Most from Being Managed Inside the WAN

Which part of your mobile estate will benefit the most from being managed inside the WAN?

QUESTION:

Home office

Smartphones

Fleet devices

Point of Sale

Small Branch office

48% 35%

16% 28%

9% 6%

9% 9%

17% 22%

Less than 100 branch offices

100 or more branch offices

Office Anywhere is more than home offices - the workspace will become more fluid and location-agnostic. The only access point from a location or branch will often be a smartphone or an IoT device - organizations should look wider at what they could and should manage through their WANs.


Even though many organizations have implemented WAN technologies that are ultimately provisioned by tele-com service providers (e.g. dedicated private networks, MPLS and some SD-WAN), very few organizations look to telecom operators for remote access services (Figure 11). Many organizations look at mobile telecom services purely as a cost to be managed. Telecom operators have also been unsuccessful at positioning themselves as viable partners for secure access solutions and as part of the WAN ecosystem.

FIGURE 11:

Selecting the Right Channel for Remote Access Services

Which of the following channels provide remote access services for your organization? QUESTION:

53%

46%

48%


IT infrastructure

vendor

Cloud services provider

Enterprise security services provider

Mobile network/Telecom operator

Managed network services provider

Systems integrator

Enterprise mobility services provider

Do-it-yourself (DIY)

28%29%33%39%65%42% 13%

8%5%9%9%19%65%21%

3% 8%8%4%17%40%14%

Telecom operators have not been particularly successful in capturing the remote access market. The need for frictionless access should present an immense market opportunity for them to provide network native, clientless services.


All Devices Need to be Secured EquallyAn increasing remote workforce means access to organization resources across multiple devices. However, there appears to be a disparity in the perception of security features for laptops and mobile devices, including smartphones, SIM-enabled tablets, and Wi-Fi routers. Although close to half (41%) of the organizations say that they have the same security features irrespective of the device (Figure 12), mobile devices are considered less secure than laptops. This highlights the need for education about the security inherent in SIM-enabled mobile devices that communicate over licensed wireless spectrum and circumvent some of the known vulnerabilities of Wi-Fi based laptops using public or home access.

FIGURE 12:

Disparity in Security & Controls between Mobiles and Laptops

7% 19% 41% 23% 10%

Same level of security/control for mobile

devices and laptops

Mobile devices have slightly better security/

control

Laptops have slightly better security/control

Laptops have significantly better

security/control

Mobile devices have significantly better

security/control

Does your enterprise network security system provide the same level of security & control on mobile devices and laptops?

QUESTION:

74% of respondents said fixed endpoints have equal or better security and controls than mobile. However, organizations - especially in North America - saw attacks on servers, laptops and mobile. Servers were still the number one attack target during COVID-19.

Mobile operators have relied on SIM card for decades now for secure authentication, billing, roaming and other security features. The SIM card thus provides almost all mobile devices today with a hardware token for authentication purposes and it seems almost a waste not to leverage this feature. Embracing SIM-based authentication solutions can enable CIOs and CISOs to manage and control remote users and devices with a similar level of visibility and security as devices connecting from within the organization’s offices. The SIM-based secure access solution significantly improves the ability to prevent threats associated with remote working and provides a better view and control of the traffic that these devices generate on the network.

A uniform level of security and control is important as cyber-attacks tend to be device as well as location agnos-tic. Organizations are concerned about corporate data on personal mobile devices and compromised mobile devices that require mitigation (Figure 13). The concerns increase with more remote workers enabled with business applications and access to sensitive corporate data from their personal devices and from different locations. Enterprises also need to manage the compromised devices and protect against further corruption of corporate data.



FIGURE 13:

There is a Need to Focus on Mitigation Strategies

Employee awareness and education

Mobile-based threats

Compliance with corporate or regulatory standards

Compromised mobile devices and mitigation

Employee exposure to public Wi-Fi use

48%

49%

39%

45%41%

35%

47%

47%

Corporate data on personal mobile devices

49%44%

40%

40%

29%

30%

28%

What are the Top 3 mobile security issues that you are most concerned about? QUESTION:


57%

74%48%Phishing and malware

41%36%36%

4 out of the top 5 mobile security concerns involve human error and failure to follow corporate IT security policies and guidelines. While not all threats can be countered by the best mobile security solutions, organizations can – and should – still evolve their mitigation strategies.

Implications for CIOs, CTOs, and Directors of IT/Network/Security Services

Think outside the WAN box. Enterprises need to think outside the box to secure and manage their mo-bile assets as their remote access needs continue to increase rapidly due to the new normal of Office Anywhere. While “traditional” WAN technologies like point-to-point private networks and MPLS might be suitable for organiza-tions where the number and location of branch offices are fairly static, they do not have the flexibility needed for a rapidly changing work environment. Organizations will need to rethink how they can best serve remote workers, temporary office locations, ad-hoc points of sales etc. Increasingly, the only access point from any location or branch will become a mobile device and individual mobile endpoints must be considered as a branch extension of the organization’s network.

Embrace existing hardware tokens.Organizations tend to undervalue inherent security features of mobile devic-es and should seek to take full advantage of the authentication features that SIM cards already can provide to their user’s mobile devices. Although orga-nizations tend to think that their laptops are better secured than their mo-bile devices, they experience more cyber-attacks on laptops than on smart-phones.

Prepare for real-time visibility and mitigation.IT managers should explore the full product capabilities of their network/security vendors. These capabilities should include full visibility of all traffic for all types of devices, and secure internet experiences meeting single re-mote worker needs. Solutions must address the ever-increasing threats from phishing and malware, protect corporate data on personal mobile devices, should be policy-based, and provide real-time mitigation for compromised mobile devices.



Focus on short-term goals – but align them with longer-term strategies.The sudden increase in the remote workforce has stressed the network and the security controls in organizations. This has created challenges in endpoint scaling, maintaining business continuity, and protecting against vulnerabili-ties - which need to be addressed in the short-term. But this focus is also part of an organization’s longer-term commitment to drive employee satisfaction, create a more flexible workforce, drive digital transformation, and even more futuristic goals such as reducing the carbon footprint through reduced travel and transportation. Increase in IT security budgets must be planned now for 2021 and the next few years. Instead of introducing discrete stop-gap solu-tions to each single security issue faced, use this as an opportunity to rethink your cybersecurity initiatives with a holistic security approach for fixed and mobile assets.

The Future of Mobile Security - Branch of One The right solution for organizations will be the one that can give frictionless acces to employees, without interfering with the user experience - and one that is not a stress on the IT and cybersecurity teams to implement and manage.


Office Anywhere Remote working is not a new idea - many businesses have had remote workers for over a decade now, driven by several factors such as cost considerations, workforce expectations, and environmental concerns. Develop-ments in the enterprise mobility space over the past few years have given workers the ability to work away from the typical office location. Field workers can access all enterprise resources from anywhere. Organizations are becoming increasingly familiar with the concept of “Office Anywhere” - two-thirds of the participants appear to be quite familiar with the concept (Figure 14). The idea of working within the walls of an office building seems to be diminishing.

Office Anywhere is still pre-dominantly associated with working from home (Figure 15). However, with the increase of adoption of Future of Work technologies, such as video-conferencing, collaboration tools, and the digitization and virtualization of workflows, the workplace will be anywhere an employee chooses to work from. Remote working during COVID-19 lockdowns has been more or less synonymous with “working from the home office” - as lockdowns and stay-at-home restrictions are lifted, this will expand. Em-ployees will choose to work from public places and use shared spaces. They may be on the go and may be setting up ad-hoc offices or shops. In other words, they will work wherever they get the best work experience and feel they can be the most productive. This means that organizations must secure devices, irrespective of where people work from and irrespective of the network they use – and they have to be flexible and fast in how they do it.

FIGURE 14:

Office Anywhere has Become a Reality

27%

1 (not familiar at all)2345 (very familiar)

Rate your familiarity with Office Anywhere QUESTION:

40% 26% 6% 1%


FIGURE 15:

Office Anywhere –Means More than Just Home Working

93%Working from Home

27%Working in Transit

54%Working in a

Shared Space

How would you describe Office Anywhere? QUESTION:

66% of respondents go beyond home offices when they think of Office Anywhere - they think of working from multiple locations. Increasingly they will work wherever they get the best work experience and feel they can be the most productive.


Branch of One – What is it? The concept of ‘Branch of One’ is applicable across many industries and organizations of all sizes. From small to medium to large enterprises and multi-national corporations, Branch of One can enable remote connections and give access over secure encrypted wireless networks.

Branch of One is the convergence of network connectivity and secure access to enterprise resources for re-mote workers via cellular/mobile networks. It allows employees and businesses to adapt rapidly and respond to dynamic changes in their environment without the need to switch devices or increase the security threat to customers or the business. The fundamental identity validation is done automatically through proven and uni-versal SIM-based authentication. Once devices are authenticated, they can access business resources, based on the access policies set by their organizations.

Branch of One enables an Office Anywhere by delivering secure, frictionless access to all business resources, with full mobility. This can be done quickly and easily scaled from a single user to large teams.

Branch of One can apply to all roles in the organization from the CEO at the top, through to line of business manag-ers, and field workers. It eliminates the need to download clients - thin or thick - and enables access to the full pow-er of business resources - scaling from individual users to large teams collaborating with simplicity and ease to create a better employee experience.


Given the various stakeholders involved in an organization’s network and security services, it is important for the multiple roles to evaluate the benefits that the Branch of One can bring to their role.

FIGURE 16:

Multiple Organization Roles are involved in Network and Security Services

DRIVES VISION BUDGET HOLDER DECISION MAKER INFLUENCER

57%CTO

44%CFO

58%CIO

60%Director/Architect

- IT Security

50%CEO

39%CTO

58%CTO

48%Manager- IT Security

31%CIO

36%CEO

44%VP - IT Security

43%VP - IT Security

What are these stakeholders’ involvements in network and security services in your organization? QUESTION:

There are several stakeholders who have significantly different roles in network and security services in an or-ganization. Their role can vary from driving vision to being the budget holder, making the decision, and being a key influencer (Figure 16).

Branch of One brings Value to Multiple Organization Roles

CEO/COO/CFO• Top and bottom line impact to the organization, RoI, cost containment

• Reducing operational risks during uncertain times, and at the same time enabling secure digital transformation

01

CIO/CTO• Enabling remote workforce productivity in a frictionless manner

• Maintaining business continuity and minimum disruptions

• Leveraging Branch of One to maximize enterprise resources utilization

02

CISO/CYBERSECURITY DIRECTOR• Protecting organizational assets, minimizing exposure of sensitive data on employee

devices

• Automating identity and policy management to assure right access for employees

• Compliance with regulations and industry standards

03

IT DIRECTOR/ NETWORKING • Implementing seamless transition from the office environment to any remote location

• Enabling secure connectivity to extend the organization for Office Anywhere

• Leveraging existing mobile network assets with inherent SIM-based security on mobile devices

• Providing a flexible platform for rapid changes with SaaS based fee structure

04

LINE OF BUSINESS MANAGERS• Effortless and automatic onboarding capabilities to enhance the EX

• Making the experience frictionless to maintain high levels of productivity

• Facilitating team collaboration in the remote work environment

• Focus on the safety and well-being of employees

05


Implications for CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CTOs, Director – IT/Network/Security, Architects and Managers

Aim for flexibility and agility.The organization needs the right investments in technology and resources to be flexible and agile for Office Anywhere which might include people working from home, shared public spaces, and in transit.

Don’t underestimate the value of “frictionless”.The goal should be to make the entire process easier for the employees; so, access and connectivity should be provided without interfering with the user experience. To make it truly frictionless, employees should no longer have to download or install software or collect and install extra hardware. The right solution for your organization will be the one that can give that frictionless ex-perience to employees, while not stressing your IT and cybersecurity teams.

Empower all roles with the right security measure.Organizations of all sizes need to explore agile and flexible concepts of Branch of One empowering individual users to large teams alike and enable digital transformation. This will have a positive impact on all key business and IT roles within an organization.


Key Takeaways


COVID-19 has Accelerated Everything

There is an Opportunity to Re-think the Organization’s Security Framework

Legacy WAN Technologies Will No Longer Do the Job

The COVID-19 crisis has been unprecedented, and so has the market’s response to it. Orga-nizations have accelerated and re-focused their priorities on digital transformation – making employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX) the mainstays of their recovery roadmap. The key component of making your customer strategy come to life is your people. Customers pay for your products or services, but it is your people who can really deliver the experience. It will all be about enhancing your EX so the ability to provide a seamless experience to employees to access all corporate resources from anywhere, as if they were in the office becomes critical. At the same time, while flexibility and a seamless experience are important, the concerns around cyber threats and data protection are equally real and paramount.

Organizations should see the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to rethink cybersecurity initiatives holistically for fixed and mobile assets. Apart from security, flexibility and ease of use are also important features for a successful and agile digital transformation. Organiza-tions should consider “frictionless” security and access solutions to create the best possible user experience for employees. CIOs and CISOs are coming to terms with the reality of in-creasing mobile workloads on remote devices and realize that enterprise private networks can no longer be limited to just PCs and laptops. All endpoints must be considered and seamlessly secured as part of the enterprise network.

Enterprise networks have expanded - and need to get better at serving remote workers as well as ad-hoc and mobile branches. To achieve this, traditional and legacy network technol-ogies will be inadequate - in offering the flexibility that organizations will need in the future workspace, and because of complexities in implementing and managing them. Enterprises need to think “outside of the WAN box” to secure and manage their mobile assets. The par-adigm shift from the traditional office environment to the new normal of Office Anywhere will see a continued increase in remote access needs. IT Teams must keep track of evolving solution capabilities to identify what best suits the organization’s requirements to become future proof.

01

02

03


Treat Endpoints as Branches of the OrganizationFuture of Work goes beyond enabling home offices. 66% of respondents think of multiple lo-cations, when they think of Office Anywhere. They will work wherever they get the best work experience and are most productive. Future work patterns will require that all endpoints are considered as extended branches of the organization. This involves the ability to extend the enterprise WAN - with speed, flexibility, and security in mind - whether it is a temporary or a home office, an ad-hoc point of sales or an employee on the go. Every employee or device should be treated like a Branch of One.

04

Every employee or device should be treated like a Branch of One.

Research Methodology

The Global CXO Study on the Future of the Secure Office Anywhere is the first comprehensive global study to examine the key business priorities in 2020 and analyze the impact of COVID-19 on organizations’ dynamically changing business and security concerns related to enabling remote working.

The study is based on 1,005 detailed interviews with key business stakeholders including C-Suite, IT and cybersecurity leaders, across a spectrum of industries in North America, EMEA and the Asia Pacific.

The study was backed by Ecosystm’s holistic 360⁰ Future of Work practice that enables businesses to adapt, pivot and thrive in what has become the new way of working. Ecosystm’s specialized Future of Work analysts span across People, Technology and the Work Environment leveraging in-depth data and industry insights to bring the most comprehensive and actionable advice. The goal is to ensure businesses can transform their strategies in line with industry best practices; and include implications to people and culture, and of optimizing the office space, for a successful digital transformation.

https://info.ecosystm360.com/future-of-work#providing_a_holistic_view_of_the_future_of_work

https://info.ecosystm360.com/future-of-work#providing_a_holistic_view_of_the_future_of_work

STUDY DEMOGRAPHICS

A Global Study

50% North America

40% EMEA

10% Asia Pacific

By Organization Size

8% Small enterprises (100 - 249 employees)

55% Medium enterprises (250 - 999 employees)

37% Large enterprises (More than 1,000 employees)

By Job Titles

By Industries

8% Resource Industries

12% Manufacturing

7% Transportation

10% Public Sector & Education

10% Health & Life Sciences

9% Energy & Utilities

5% Media & Telecom

12% Financial Services

10% Services

17% Retail, Distribution & Consumer Goods

10% CFO

7% CIO

5% CTO

39% Manager - IT Security

4% CISO

9% VP - IT/Security

26% Director/Architect - IT Security


Report Authors

A veteran in the field of networking technologies, including Wireless, IP Net-works, Data and Voice and Video Services, Ashok brings over 35 years of unique perspectives as an analyst and consultant in the telecommunications industry.

Previously the Director of Custom Research with Current Analysis, Ashok spe-cialised in providing strategic assessments, comparative analysis and recom-mendations to clients. Prior to that, he was an independent Technology Ad-visor and Principal Consultant with New Media Systems offering insights on Enterprise Mobility, OTT Video, Wi-Fi Offloading and Wireless Technologies.

Ashok holds a degree in Engineering from the University of Madras, India and Master’s in Business Administration from Cleveland State University. He is a board member of the Wireless Technology Forum and the Industry Advisor Council of DeVry University. He is also a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Claus has more than 17 years of experience in both strategic and tactical guidance for vendors and service providers in the IT and telecommunications space. Having worked as an analyst and a consultant in both Europe and Asia, Claus has supported clients with local, regional and global briefs to position their offerings and grow their businesses in their target markets. These have included Google, Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, Orange and SingTel.

Previously, Claus spent nine years at IDC Asia Pacific, where he climbed the ranks to launch and lead IDC’s Emerging Technology practice. In Asia and Eu-rope, Claus is also a renowned speaker and blogger, who continues to eval-uate and forecast how disruptive technologies impact the marketplace and how digitization is transforming business models across all industries.

ASHOK KUMARPrincipal Advisor, Ecosystm

CLAUS MORTENSENPrincipal Analyst, Ecosystm


With over two decades of experience in technology, media and telecommuni-cations industry, Shamir has held a variety of roles across research, strategy and business planning and aided in the development of government policies and project frameworks. As a Principal Advisor at Ecosystm, Shamir lends his extensive knowledge to provide customers with strategic and tactical insights and analysis into the transformation of the telecommunications and media domain.

In his early career, Shamir served as a pioneer member at the Frost & Sulli-van telecommunications research team in Malaysia, conducting research and consulting across 13 APAC countries. Shamir subsequently headed the Busi-ness Intelligence division for Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, formerly known as MDC- building Malaysia’s Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project. At MDEC, Shamir was involved in developing government policies concerning MSC and national ICT industry.

In the previous 8 years, Shamir spearheaded strategy for the Puncak Seman-gat Group. He was involved in the business planning and strategy for LTE 4G frequency band. Further, he fronted the Digital Terrestrial Television Broad-casting (DTTB) project concession in Malaysia, managed public enquiries on myFreeview (Digital TV) service and formed a CX framework.

Tim brings more than 20 years of experience in designing and implementing Cloud, IoT, AI and Automation strategies to the Ecosystm network, to support businesses in their IT decisions.

In his previous role, Tim spent 12 years at Forrester Research, most recently as a Principal Analyst, helping IT leaders improve their digital capabilities. Prior to this, he was Research Director for IT Solutions at IDC in Australia, where he assisted IT vendors in designing solutions to better fit market re-quirements, and IT buyers in improving the effectiveness of their IT functions.

Beyond the office, Tim boasts an international reputation as an entertaining and informative public speaker on the key trends in the IT market. Tim grad-uated from University of Technology Sydney with a BA majoring in Marketing and Research.

Helping us see the bigger picture, Sash is a Principal Analyst at Ecosystm, responsible for delving into our insights and developing thought leadership to show buyers and vendors alike where the industry is heading. A veteran in primary and secondary research, Sash has more than 16 years of experience analysing, writing and training in industries as wide-ranging as healthcare, education and insurance.

In her last position as Research Manager at IDC Asia Pacific, Sash was in charge of spotting current and future technology adoption trends in Health-care and Education. She was also a regular speaker and panelist at industry events, and frequently moderated conversations between key policymakers and senior IT executives.

SHAMIR AMANULLAHPrincipal Advisor, Ecosystm

TIM SHEEDYPrincipal Advisor, Ecosystm

SASH MUKHERJEEPrincipal Analyst, Ecosystm

About Asavie

About Ecosystm

Asavie’s on-demand mobility and IoT services provide increased productivi-ty, valuable insights and enhanced security for the digital business. Asavie’s distributed private network and cloud platform, unifies visibility and control across all mobile and IoT endpoints. Strategic distribution and technology partners include AT&T, IBM, Microsoft, O2, Singtel, Telefonica, Verizon, VM-ware and Vodafone. Asavie is an ISO27001 certified company.

www.asavie.com follow @Asavie on twitter.

Ecosystm is a private equity backed Digital Research and Advisory Platform with global headquarters in Singapore. As a global first, Ecosystm brings to-gether tech buyers, tech vendors and analysts into one integrated platform to enable the best decision making in the evolving digital economy. The firm moves away from the highly inefficient business models of traditional re-search firms and instead focuses on research democratisation, with an em-phasis on accessibility, transparency and autonomy.

Ecosystm’s research originates from its custom designed “Peer2-Peer” plat-form which allows Tech Buyers to benchmark their organisation in “real-time” against their industry or market. This bold new research paradigm enables Ecosystm to provide Tech Vendors access to ongoing and real time Market Insights in an affordable “as-a-Service” subscription model.

www.ecosystm360.com

http://www.asavie.com

https://www.ecosystm360.com/#/

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