The cruciality of end-point security for a work away from work culture

Authored by Jerry Jalaba, Global Security Sales Director, APJ & Americas West, Dell Technologies

Is battling data breach getting more intense? Or are the hackers getting more smarter with time? Whatever be the case, the breach turmoil definitely leads to a devastating existential crisis for any organization. Take for instance, the latest data breach incident at one of India’s leading IT services firm, Wipro. Wipro was struck by an advanced phishing attack that stirred some of the customers, as well as employee accounts. Though the company stated that they had released a security patch immediately, yet imagine the aftermath of such a breach. From losing customers to losing business, the repercussions could have been far worse.

Data breach is today keeping every organization on their toes. The cloud and mobile technologies are now generating more endpoints, more networks and more data; therefore, optimizing the need to manage, secure and protect. The end-point devices are prime targets for such malwares. One of the prime causes of concern for businesses is phishing, which preys on unsuspecting users to click on malicious, disguised links. Data security threats can also come from within the organization. This includes accidental breach or employee error. Similarly, integrating software that is not updated or repaired or applications that are not effectively coded and may possess blackholes, makes business data very vulnerable. It is very crucial for every organization to realize that the present-day data threats are way more sophisticated now and thus, the end-point security solution needs to be boosted too.

These challenges become more plausible in a mobile workforce. Today’s tech-savvy professionals are spread across various geographical locations, working on connected devices through the internet. Employees, vendors, and partners share files and collaborate on multiple mobile devices. The ability to access email and business documents anywhere, anytime has become a prerequisite for productivity. Under such circumstance, the company data becomes more vulnerable and also becomes an easy target for the cyber criminals. Ensuring end-point security and confidentiality of company data, in such scenarios, becomes more critical.

Let us now look at the prerequisites for the CIOs and CISOs to ensure end-point security in their organizations.

• Emerging technological advances in security  and risk management must be prioritized
• Effective integrated security solutions need to be introduced
• Security awareness trainings need to be deployed in order to make employees aware of the importance of cybersecurity both in and out of office
• And functions such as fraud management, audits, legal/compliance, and business continuity must be executed

Apart from that, business professionals and cyber security teams need to know that there is no one single solution that fits all. Typically, the IT team implements one common security policy across everyone, whereas, they need to know who they are providing the security to and what tools need to be used in order to protect the sensitive data.

Therefore, to address the needs of different kinds of workers, the data security system must be a combination of both policies and tools. The security policies must be driven through a wider security strategy that keeps the employees informed about what they can and cannot do. Employees should be confident and should know how to keep the company assets protected, and company decision makers need to make them aware of updated data security solutions. 

Enhanced data security with Dell Data Security Solutions Acting upon the present-day data threats, the Dell Data Security Solutions emphasize on empowering organizations to create an environment where employees can perform efficiently from any location and are also able to keep data protected through an integrated security solution. At Dell, we believe that end user productivity and security need to work hand in hand. Thus, we provide end-point security solutions that enable users to stay productive from anywhere they want, without any hassle.