The Corona pandemic has meant that many Danish and international companies have been forced to upgrade their IT operations and systems in order to accommodate the new challenges posed by the pandemic. This “technological” development is something many companies have planned in their strategy for the coming years, but unforeseen events (read: Corona) have forced many companies to have to adapt quickly in order to keep up with the new realities. Furthermore, the Corona pandemic has mapped many opportunities in the working day such as; flexible working days and having the home as a workplace, which entails many new IT related challenges, both operationally and security-wise.
These new challenges have led to an increasing demand for IT solutions and “conversion / outsourcing”. But what solutions / tools does your company need? And which supplier should you choose? We at Automize could of course nominate ourselves, but we believe that all companies are different and it may therefore be that there is no match between what you are looking for and what we can offer. In that case, however, we will be able to send you on to some of our "Kon colleagues", who we know are skilled.
Due to the Corona pandemic, many companies have been forced to send large parts of their workforce home to reduce the risk of infection. For many companies, this has opened up several new flexible options in relation to working hours and employees who decide on their own working day on a larger scale. However, it has also led to many petty practical problems, such as; do we have enough computers for everyone to take home? should everyone then sit with two screens in the office at home? video meetings with children, pets and the whole in-laws in the background, yes the list could go on. However, there is one thing that all companies should ask themselves, regardless of size and technical advancement; How do we ensure that our sensitive information reaches everyone working from home and on their respective networks?
One could, of course, make out an email in which one CCs the entire company and writes something along these lines;
Hello dear all
Since many of us work from home in these Corona times, our IT department has a little ask for everyone.
Since many of you work with sensitive documents and information, it is important that only you use your PC and not others in the family, you are also welcome to check who has access to your internet connection and maybe change your password from 123456 to something there a little harder to guess.
In addition, I should say from the IT department that everyone is welcome to use the remote desktop as far as possible as it has a VPN connection with encrypted WAP key?
I hope you will take these steps for into account, looking forwards.
Regards
The boss
There are probably many who have received such an email and there are many things wrong with it. firstly, this message lets the individual employee make decisions about whether and how they best feel about securing sensitive information instead of setting a company standard that everyone should follow. This of course means that there is less responsibility on the part of management, but there is no overview of who has access to specific documents and sensitive information.
In addition, the ordinary "mortal" employee who can only just find out how to open his mail and use the printer get a very technical explanation that they need to change the way they access programs, information and apps in a more secure way. This is of course far from appropriate and will no doubt lead to the IT department being flooded with calls and emails from colleagues who must have explained how to access the remote desktop from their PC. This is of course the best case scenario, as the alternative is that one's employee does not follow the referral and inappropriate individuals gain access to sensitive information.
One could easily be tempted to believe that as soon as the Corona is over that everything will go back to the "good old". Unfortunately, we just have to realize that when events of such a magnitude as COVID-19 have been, then we will not be able to avoid that it will have permanent consequences for large parts of our everyday lives. Many companies and employees have had to work from home, which before Corona would usually never be possible, because how could you make sure that your colleagues and employees actually did something. In addition, many have seen the possibility of scar work partly from the home office a few days a week, as it provides more flexibility in everyday life. In the future, many meetings will most likely also be online. In short, we must probably prepare for the fact that many digital and online initiatives have come to stay. This, of course, places higher demands on the fact that IT operations and IT security are in order in a world that is becoming more digital faster. It will therefore require more from Danish companies and their IT departments if they are to be able to be sure of being able to solve the task satisfactorily.
One could, of course, get one's IT manager to manually restrict which files are available to individual employees of the company. This solution may be quite good if you only have a handful of employees in the company, but it is not scalable and is certainly not suitable for companies that do not have a dedicated IT manager or believe that IT security is a serious issue. Of course, you could also postpone the problem or pretend to be nothing, but we know that it will only create bigger problems in the future.
Fortunately, there is a simpler and more effective solution to this problem. By outsourcing large parts of its IT operations to suppliers such as Automize, you will not only be guaranteed in terms of security, but Automize will also be able to help build the necessary systems / databases / processes so that only the relevant employees have access. for sensitive information. These implementations will mean that you will have full control over which employees should have access to which information. Furthermore, Automize will be able to analyze your existing IT structure, software and programs that you use and come up with solutions on how they can be used better. Most often we see that many companies have access to security programs through their existing licenses, but they are either not aware of it or they do not know how to use them, this of course we can also help with.
To sum up; Covid-19 has either shed light on or accelerated existing issues within IT security in many Danish companies. These security issues are not something that will disappear once the world returns to "normal-like conditions", we must therefore adapt to a new everyday life which will increasingly see more days in the home office, online meetings and generally more digital processes.
If you are interested in reading more about our competencies, you can click here and see a complete list of all the areas in which we are specialists within and have many years of experience with. If you would like to contact us instead to hear what we can do for your company, you can do so here.
If you are interested in reading more about our competencies, you can click here and see a complete list of all the areas in which we are specialists within and have many years of experience with. If you would like to contact us instead to hear what we can do for your company, you can do so here.
Niklas Vogt Johnsen
nvj@automize.dk
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