Turnkey Protection for At-Home Workers

Turnkey protection for employees who are permanently work-from-home (WFH) is now the new business reality. The universal WFH paradigm, driven by COVID-19 social distancing guidelines, is the new business standard for organizations of all sizes. According to recent studies, businesses have discovered that WFH employees are more productive and the business saves money from reduced demand for office space and resources. More than 60% of businesses plan to keep WFH in place long-term.

Organizations must consider the risks associated with WFH employees moving from a trusted and fortified corporate network to one that involves public internet, home-based networks, and untrustworthy consumer-grade security.

The new work-from-home arrangement, perhaps prudent for the current pandemic situation, introduces numerous security concerns, including:

• Remote access to the internal corporate systems, data, and applications.
• Mix of work and personal activities on the same home network connection.
• Failure to conform to corporate’s security controls and guidelines.

Suddenly, the entire network infrastructure is more vulnerable than ever to back-door breaches as the result of under-protected remote users. The vulnerabilities range from targeted phishing, zero-day threats, intrusion, man-in-the-middle, and data theft. Businesses need turnkey protection for their WFH workforce.

This brief covers various “how-to” topics for considering turnkey protection for WFH employees:

• Secure your distributed workforce home network.
• Provide next-generation firewall protection in a home office environment.
• Securely bolster workers’ home wifi with enterprise-grade wireless performance.
• Central management of distributed home networks.
• Ease onboarding with zero-touch deployment.

The document includes diagrams and links to additional resources for robust turnkey protection solutions.