Mobile Workforce Security Blog Series – Part 2
Organizations worldwide are seeking greater employee mobility for a variety of business and quality of life reasons. Key to becoming a ‘mobile enterprise’ is the ability to manage and secure the identities and data within an IT ecosystem whose boundaries are becoming increasing blurry. This blog series explores how enterprises can do so to gain enterprise mobile security.
Flexible working arrangements offer a win-win solution for employees and their managers.
According to a recent study by Regus, a global provider of business and office space, 72% of global businesses report that increased productivity is a direct result of flexible working practices. 68% of enterprises indicated that flexible working has led to staff generating increased revenue.
For employees, the motivation to seek flexible work arrangements includes family needs, reduced commute time, and work life balance. In a survey by FlexJobs, 83 percent of respondents said they would be more loyal to their employer if they had flexible work options.
Employee mobility and flexible working arrangements have in large part been enabled by the rapid information technology advances of the past few years: widespread adoption of cloud computing and software as a service and the broad use of mobile devices as the platform of choice for work related computing tasks.
As more employees log onto remote systems from any location and multiple devices, the issue of mobile workforce security has come to the fore – especially in the wake of massive breaches that have taken place over the past few years. Enterprise mobility cannot be separated from enterprise mobile security. And in this respect, two-factor authentication plays a crucial role.
Reliance on weak user access controls that consist of passwords only is a sure way to place systems at risk. For example, the recent breach of the US Federal Government’s Office of Personnel Management was the direct result of compromised credentials. To mitigate this type of threat, the US government is now scrambling to implement two-factor authentication at numerous federal agencies.
Enterprise mobility and flexible working arrangements are a boon to employers and employees alike. Fortunately, with risk mitigation approaches that include strong authentication, enterprises can embrace mobile workforce securely.
To learn how simple and easy enterprise mobile security can be, check out our infographic or visit our A4 Authentication for Mobile Workforce Security microsite, and find out how you can secure access to Any Application, from Any Device, at Any Assurance Level, Anywhere.
