BIZTECH: Many businesses have been fully remote for many months. What will change as they shift to hybrid?
Shi: The biggest challenge at many organizations is related to zero trust and endpoint management. When you go to a hybrid scenario, there will need to be more emphasis on mobile device management.
The use case for MDM is stronger in a hybrid environment because it’s about managing devices and checking the security posture of those devices before they can enter the network, regardless of whether they are on-premises or remote.
That’s what we have evolved to with zero trust. I wouldn’t even call it network access anymore; it’s really application access, because employees often don’t need access to the entire infrastructure to do their work. In today’s world, because of SaaS, you don’t necessarily want people to have a virtual private network. The adjustment in going from VPNs to a zero-trust access approach is where a lot of the gaps are.
BIZTECH: Is it fair to say that what businesses need to do to get ready for hybrid work environments are things they should have already done?
Shi: In the days after the pandemic began, there was a big scramble, and businesses did what they needed to do. But now we have a lot of access components that people are having to address.
After scrambling to get everyone productive, some businesses added some security. But if you look at what we have to do next, we really have to get organized and thorough when it comes to how we deliver access to our distributed workforces.