The technical side of hybrid work
Jun 19th, 2020 by Jesper Kråkhede
It looks like many of us will split our time between home and office for quite a while. Some days in the office, most days at home. That creates a few technical challenges that I see over and over again.
The first is the device. A laptop that spends weeks outside the office doesn´t get its patches and policies through the old on-premises tools if they depend on the corporate network. Move device management and patching to the cloud so it works wherever the laptop is.
The second is the network. The VPN was built for the exception, not the norm. Let cloud services go directly to internet and keep the VPN for the applications that really need it. Better yet, publish them through the identity platform.
The third is identity. When you can´t see who walks through the door, the logon is all you have. A second factor, Conditional Access and monitoring of risky sign-ins are not nice to have anymore.
The fourth is the home network itself. You don´t control it and you never will. Assume it is hostile and make the device protect itself: firewall on, encrypted disk, up to date protection.
And don´t forget the users. A short message on how to spot a phishing mail is worth more now than ever.
Hybrid means the office is just another network. Treat it like one.