Forecasts for the Everywhere Enterprise in 2021. More than a third of the world's population stayed home in 2020 to protect themselves from the pandemic.
Companies have had to reorganize their processes overnight and it seems that the changes in our working life are here to stay. What does 2021 hold in store for companies that continue to adapt to the era of the Everywhere Enterprise? MobileIron expects several clear trends over the next twelve months.
The rush to the cloud will continue
Many companies are looking for cloud-based collaboration and productivity tools for employees working from home. This trend is sure to continue into the next year as more and more companies recognize the importance of the cloud. With the second wave in full swing, companies are ready to sustain these new work models over the long term - some maybe even permanently; Google has urged its employees to continue working from home at least until next July. Tools in the cloud are perfect for collaboration across distributed locations. Companies that have already taken the first steps are relocating further resources to public cloud infrastructures.
People will be the limit of the network
Workers will return to the office, but not full-time and not in droves. In fact, MobileIron's survey of the Everywhere Enterprise found that over 80% of employees don't want to return to the office at all. The boundaries of the company network shift to the employees at home. What they are allowed to access inside and outside the company network then depends on the user identity. Even when logged into the network, they have minimal access to resources as long as they and the device they are using are not authenticated and authorized. This approach, known as Zero Trust Networking, will extend not only to employees, but also to customers, contractors and other business partners.
More teleworking user experience
When the initial lockdown began, companies responded by expanding their VPN connections. That got her through the immediate crisis, but it was far from ideal. VPN devices on the LAN struggled with capacity constraints as such solutions were difficult to scale, creating performance issues and forcing users to work with cumbersome VPN clients and logins. This worked for a few months, but as employees want to continue working from home in 2021, IT departments need to focus on creating a better remote user experience. One aspect of this user experience is location independence. Many employees will use their devices at home, but also on the go, or bring them to the branch.
Outdated remote access mechanisms will disappear
The data traffic can no longer only flow through individual VPN tunnels. Instead, companies should allow employees at remote locations direct access. This means either cleaning up the traffic on the device itself or in the cloud. MobileIron's technology enables a device to see what type of network it is on and create an SSL encrypted session directly with the cloud productivity application. It can also set cloud-based policies for device access.
User authentication improvements
Part of this authentication approach is better user verification. This will be expressed as follows: The annoying authentication via password will become obsolete. The home office trend will accelerate this even further. Employees who access the network through mobile devices are increasingly using biometric authentication, which is more secure and convenient. The second enhancement in user verification will reduce the need for users to log into applications. Sessions will last longer as users become more familiar with their devices.
Customer interactions require greater mobile security
It's not just employees who need higher levels of mobile security. Companies will also interact differently with customers. The number of in-person interactions in retail is likely to decrease if social distancing rules continue to apply. Instead, contactless transactions are gaining in importance and companies are offering self-service at the checkout. Retailers need to focus more on mobile devices - from finding products to ordering and paying.
Greater acceptance of QR codes as a threat
Restaurants and retailers, for example, are increasingly using QR codes to enable contactless use of menus and payment systems. The problem is that QR codes were never developed for these applications or for digital authentication and can easily be linked to malicious codes that tamper with smartphones. MobileIron investigated these risks in its recent QR Code Security Report, which revealed an alarming ignorance among attendees. QR code fraud could increase sharply in 2021. The Everywhere Enterprise should also be prepared for this trend.
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About MobileIron MobileIron is redefining enterprise security with the industry's first mobile-centric zero trust platform built on top of Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) to secure unlimited access to and protection of data across the enterprise. Zero Trust assumes that cyber criminals are already on the network and that secure access is determined by a "never trust, always verify" approach. MobileIron goes beyond identity management and gateway approaches by using a broader set of attributes before granting access. A mobile-centric zero trust approach validates the device, establishes the user context, checks the authorization of applications, verifies the network and detects and corrects threats before a secure access to a device or a user is granted. The MobileIron security platform is built on the foundation of the award-winning and industry-leading Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) capabilities with additional zero-trust enabling technologies, including zero-sign-on (ZSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA) and mobile threat Defense (MTD). Over 20.000 customers, including the world's largest financial institutions, intelligence services, and other highly regulated companies, have chosen MobileIron to provide a seamless and secure user experience by ensuring that only authorized users, devices, applications, and services access corporate resources can.