Axa Assurance Maroc - Insurer Innovation Award 2024
More mobility, more risk?
1. Mobility and security:
mutually exclusive
clash or balancing act
In the pursuit of better digital
experiences for customers, increased
productivity for employees,
and uncompromised network security
for the organisation, end-user
computing initiatives are key,
and the CIO stands at the precipice of a
very complex balancing act.
2. Walking the tightrope;
security versus
freedom
New mobility initiatives may correlate
with very real business needs, but they
require comprehensive,
all-encompassing IT strategies.
It’s not an easy thing to implement,
often forcing CIOs to vacillate between
the protection of sensitive information
and allowing mobile workers free and
flexible application access outside of the
traditional office space.
3. Developing your
framework: filling
in the gaps
To address the needs of the end-user
without adversely affecting
cybersecurity initiatives, a holistic
framework capable of addressing the
broad proliferation of end-user
computing avenues is required.
The challenge is allocating the right
people to implement a strategy that
will ensure all needs are addressed,
while still keeping security as the
highest priority.
4. With cybersecurity at the forefront of
any list of priorities, many CIOs are
understandably uncomfortable in an
environment where the employee is
granted ubiquitous access to the
network from anywhere in the world.
Going forward, firm, transparent policies
will be required to augment embedded
security controls already in place.
Securing data: when
is your data at risk?
5. Fortunately, technology—from mobile
device management (MDM) to
wraparound mobile enterprise
management—has matured enough in
the last four or five years, such that
secure policy-driven processes can be
implemented without encumbering the
seamlessness of the experience for the
end-user.
Clear view of security:
Transparency in
communicating
policies
6. The need for simplicity, productivity
and ease of access cannot be
understated. Flexible and intuitive
experiences are key in an
environment where the needs of
the end-user are driving an entire
paradigm shift.
The evolution of
collaboration
through mobility
7. Policies and systems implemented by
CIOs should not inhibit an end-user’s
access to enterprise applications or the
corporate intranet. Seamless interaction
with colleagues and organisational
applications – from anywhere, at any
time – is of paramount importance to
the workforce. Without it, the
organisation risks their security though
the potential adoption of shadow IT.
The evolution of
collaboration through
mobility… continued
8. Coinciding with the propagation of
transparent security policies,
organisations need to continually
educate employees, encouraging
vigilance as well as end-user roles
and responsibilities.
Inside and out
– security education
9. Ultimately, policies relating to security
and privacy come down to the
organisations implementing them,
as well as the countries in which they
reside. That’s fairly evident when
looking at the disparities between
various regions, highlighted in our
Mobile Workforce Report (MWR).
Mobility initiatives
across the map
10. Unsurprisingly, the unpredictable and
varied nature of a mobile workforce
concerns CIOs. Maintaining workspaces
with inconsistent perimeters and erratic
points of access, that demand pliable
yet secure networks, is no mean feat.
Nevertheless, the mobile worker has
become the norm rather than the
exception, and it is only through
embracing workspaces for tomorrow
that organisations will be assured of
a successful future.
Smarter, faster
security for mobility