Mobile devices are part and parcel of today’s increasingly distributed workforce. Laptops, smartphones, and tablets are provisioned by enterprises to increase employee productivity, while providing flexibility to work remotely. But when the pandemic struck, security teams across industries were challenged by the unprecedented speed and scale of the shift; prior to the pandemic, only 7% of U.S. workers had the option to regularly work from home, while today 42% of the U.S. labor force works from home full-time.
This disruption created great strain for IT security teams. Almost overnight, employees needed to be productive in a work-from-home reality where they were connecting to company networks, cloud applications, and email through potentially unsecured Wi-Fi networks. This challenge was compounded by the increase in employee BYOD devices, as already-overworked IT teams raced to ensure only authorized devices could connect to corporate assets. In turn, they have leaned into mobile device management (MDM), a type of security software to manage employee mobile devices. But still, gaps remain.