Security Tops the List of 2021 IT Priorities
Enterprises prioritize secure communication and say goodbye to unauthorized, unmanaged collaboration apps
Security is top of mind for IT leaders across enterprises as digital transformation expands the cybersecurity threat landscape. This expanding threat landscape includes increasing security exposure emerging from the accelerated shift to remote working. As security concerns escalate in the work from anywhere environment - 95% of CIOs expect cybersecurity threats to get worse - secure, agile collaboration is rising to the top of organizational priorities.
In fact, Cisco’s Future of Secure Remote Work report found that 85% of respondents globally consider cybersecurity extremely important or more important than it was before the pandemic.
Gartner noted that securing the remote workforce “has now become the single greatest existential imperative for all organizations in the wake of COVID-19.” This imperative will continue as remote work becomes a fixture in enterprise operations. Nearly two-thirds of organizations (64%) said the significant increase in remote working is a permanent COVID-19 driven change according to the 451 Research survey.
Enterprise concerns about the security of collaboration tools are compelling CIOs to evaluate collaboration platforms with a laser focus on security. The 451 Research survey found that most IT decision-makers are concerned about the security risks in enterprise collaboration tools. Survey results revealed that nearly three out of four (74%) respondents are somewhat (52%) or very concerned (22%) about the level of security in the collaboration tools that remote workers are currently using.
During the pandemic many organizations had to adapt on the fly to changing working norms, and this resulted in a failure to address some areas that would have strengthened security. According to a report by Malwarebytes, 45% of surveyed IT and cybersecurity decision makers in the U.S. did not analyze the security or privacy features in the software tools considered necessary for remote working.
Today, enterprises are prioritizing secure communication, reversing policies that allowed the use of unauthorized, unmanaged applications to foster collaboration according to a report by Infoblox and Zogby Analytics. The research found that 63% of companies were “allowing workers to connect with each other using applications like WhatsApp, Zoom, and Houseparty.”
Collaboration platforms like NetSfere that integrate end-to-end encryption are key to helping shut down cyber threats which have become more pervasive in the wake of COVID-19. Nearly half (46%) of global businesses have encountered at least one cybersecurity scare since shifting to a remote working model during the COVID-19 lockdown.
As IT leaders prioritize cybersecurity to reduce risk, collaboration tools purpose-built for the enterprise are critical to protecting privacy, security and business resiliency. NetSfere’s agile, secure collaboration platform provides the industry-leading security enterprises need in powerful communications tools designed to help optimize productivity and maximize business performance.
Contact us today to learn how NetSfere’s mobile messaging service brings the power of secure communication to the workplace, ensuring secure, compliant collaboration from any location, on any device.