Security as a key factor in the Digital Workplace

Mobile working is in. Many employees are moving their desk in the company to a home office and accessing company resources from there. What about IT security? Company data is more exposed, and the risk of data loss through cyberattacks on corporate networks is growing.

View IT security from different angles

The focus is not only on securing the information channels, but also on securing the information and data themselves, which is becoming increasingly important and demanding. Depending on the concept, IT security must be viewed from different angles, as each technology requires a different solution.

A good concept minimizes the loss of comfort

IT security is a slider between convenience and security. If you want a high level of IT security, you have to make sacrifices in terms of user convenience. With a good concept, you minimize the loss of convenience and still get high IT security. Two examples:

• In the Digital Workplace with a virtual desktop concept and products from Citrix, data does not leave the data center. By operating the virtual desktops in the data center, a high level of IT security is guaranteed. You can define very precisely how the slider is set between convenience and security. You decide under what circumstances data can be downloaded from the virtual desktop to end devices. For example, when you are working in the company network or when you are accessing from the company laptop.
• IT security is becoming increasingly important with cloud workloads, as users integrate services like Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive more and more into their everyday work. Without a data retention concept, your company data is increasingly distributed without you retaining control over it. A good data retention concept is therefore essential, especially when using cloud services.

Author:
Thomas Bossard is ICT Architect at GIA Informatik AG, Peyermattstrasse 3, CH-4665 Oftringen. www.gia.ch