The rise of the mobile-first workplace: How to verify a moving target
Empowering and protecting today’s workforce requires new approaches to securing devices.
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The mobility trend is reaching new heights and today’s workforce works much differently than it did even ten years ago. Working from home has more than doubled among workers who are not self-employed since 2005, according to recent data from the Census Bureau. Mobile devices have proliferated the workplace, flexible remote work policies are on the rise, and companies are trying to appeal to the work styles of millennial and Generation Z workers. It’s a fact – we’re an increasingly mobile workforce.
In years past, binding to an Active Directory (AD) domain was a great solution to solve authentication issues, and it was something I heavily encouraged during my time atApplemany years ago. AD works well for organisations where all employees come to an office and log into the corporate network – but this isn’t an accurate portrayal for many employers’ workforces today. With AD or Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), users are forced to take the old-school approach of being on an organisation’s local area network (LAN) or use a virtual private network (VPN) to connect to internal resources, which provides a sub-optimal user experience. If you’re using the Active Directory plugin, users can only change their passwords when AD is reachable — which often causes both confusion and costly help desk tickets.
Over the last few years I’ve come across more and more end users who only use the organisational VPN when they have to change their AD password. Everything else that they need to do their jobs is cloud-based and does not require a connection to a particular network.
Empowering and protecting today’s workforce requires new approaches to security so employees can access the applications and data they need, from any location, without sacrificing security or performance. So how should an IT department’s approach to identity and security shift, and how do you get all stakeholders on board with this new approach?
Enter cloud identity! There is a way where you can be more secure, not require VPN connectivity, and make password changes easier for your users. The approach to identity and security has to evolve – which is where cloud identity providers come in. Cloud identity allows IT to centrally and remotely manage users, groups, passwords and access to corporate applications and cloud resources. Providers such asMicrosoft,Google, Okta, IBM and OneLogin — and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and Open Authorisation (OAuth) are offering a path to making this evolution a reality.
But shifting from AD or LDAP to cloud identity requires getting all the appropriate stakeholders on board. When looking to sell your team and leadership on this shift, start with the below.
As you move down this path, keep a few things in mind as you progress.
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Today’s hiring environment is tight. Employers want to be on trend in order to acquire top talent, but also want to make sure they are protecting themselves and their data. It’s time for organisations to recognise their new workforce’s needs and make their environment more secure – all while cutting down on the number of password-related IT support tickets.
Joel Rennich, director of Jamf Connect,Jamf
Joel Rennich, Head of Device Identity, JumpCloud.
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