IT and workforce digitalization is not only changing businesses, but whole industries, virtually overnight. Think about how we buy groceries, now that Amazon owns Whole Foods. While there are numerous variables that must be considered as an organization moves towards digital transformation, not keeping data security at the top of the priority list would be a fatal mistake.
One of today’s most critical data security concerns relates to strategic partner data access/sharing, and consequently security. I would like to offer the perspective of Don Boxley, CEO and Co-Founder of DH2i, on this subject. Here are Don’s two top questions he advises every IT and business professional tasked with digitization and/or data security should be asking themselves in 2019:
- What’s our security strategy for remote user/partner network access?
Security threats are increasing. Every business should be reviewing their strategy for managing remote user/partner access.
- How do we get every remote user off our network, but still provide them access to business critical services?
Broken authentication and access controls are the most common ways for attackers to assume other users’/partners’ identities and access unauthorized functionality and/or data. So, getting every remote user/partner off the network eliminates a significant security attack surface. But, a digitally transformed business isn’t possible if users/partners can’t transact business digitally.
And, here are the two top questions Don advises should be asked of security solution(s) vendors this year (that likely were not asked last year):
- Does your remote access solution support application-segmentation?
– Modern remote-access solutions give network admins the ability to segment by application not by network. This limits remote users to fine-grained access to specific services, eliminating lateral network attacks.
- Does your remote access solution support a heterogeneous router environment?
Want to eliminate router vendor lock-in? Find a remote user access solution that scales across a multi-partner and hybrid cloud environment.
