Cofense & Gartner: Email Security in the Virtual Workspace
Working Remotely in 2020 and Beyond
Remote working has become the ‘new normal.’ And trending data suggests that this phenomenon will continue indefinitely. Gartner, a global leader in business technology consulting and research analysis, found that 88% of business organizations worldwide mandated or encouraged their employees to work from home as the coronavirus started to spread. In a July 2020 press release, Gartner revealed that 82% of company leaders surveyed “plan to allow employees to work remotely some of the time as employees return to the physical workplace” and “47% said they intend to let their employees continue to work remotely full time going forward.”1
Security in A Work-From-Home World
With a continuing shift to remote and hybrid workplace models, technology leadership must update the security aspect of their organization’s work-from-home policies, processes, and solutions. In addition to traditional security risks, new challenges faced by cybersecurity professionals include less-secure home networks and router vulnerabilities; the use of personal devices for work purposes; and SMS messaging, mobile app and video-conferencing phishing campaigns.
To effectively protect the remote workspace and its quickly growing list of challenges, it will take a proverbial ‘village.’ Gartner’s The Urgency to Treat Cybersecurity as a Business Decision2, foreshadows this issue facing post-pandemic America by pointing out the disconnect between security leaders and business executives. As evidenced by the workforce shake-up created by an unforeseen circumstance, protecting an organization’s proprietary information must be met with a multifaceted team approach including technology, employee training and implementation of policies and procedures. In fact, at the virtual Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit, analyst Brian Reed told attendees that remote workplace security “is the single greatest existential imperative for all organizations in the wake of COVID-19.”
Phishing: Top Remote Workplace Security Concern
Effectively protecting devices, networks and remotely accessed data requires phishing security to be a top priority in the virtual workplace.3 As phishing attacks continue to become more sophisticated, persistent, and adapt to legacy security defenses, standard solutions alone are simply not enough. Cofense, a four time ‘Leader’ in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Computer-Based Security Awareness Training,4 has pioneered an innovative platform that revolutionizes the anti-phishing solution.
The Cofense PDR platform provides a comprehensive approach to stop phishing attacks through global crowd-sourced phishing intelligence from a network of 25 million people combined with advanced automation. By integrating all components of the platform, organizations can detect phish in their environment, educate employees on how to identify and report phish, and respond quickly to remediate the threats before there is harm done to their organization.