Menlo Security recently conducted research to find out how organizations across industries are dealing with the balance between security and user experience. According to the completed survey, 62% of IT decision makers report that their organizations still have work-from-home mandates in place. Even when Covid-19 goes away, 80 percent of those respondents say they will likely have to support a hybrid IT model to accommodate a home office/work balance.

In terms of threats, two-thirds of respondents in the survey say their enterprise continues to face email/web threats, while 40% note they are facing threats to cloud applications and Internet of Things (IoT) environments. In terms of challenges, 77% say they need to rethink their VPN strategy and remote access in the future, and 82% report that they’re expecting increased regulations and compliance requirements in the next two years.

In addition to threats, they survey also focused on the user experience. Respondents say key focuses right now include: slow access speeds (46%), poor connectivity (33%), no/loss of access to resources (28%, downtime (27%), and decreased productivity caused by increased security (27%). In fact, 87 percent say security will need to better support the user experience.