Over the past decade or so, technology has been steadily evolving to provide workers with more flexibility regarding the devices they use, the locations they can work from, and the resources they can access. BYOD and the cloud were the first steps for enabling people to work from anywhere. Then SaaS, combined with smarter endpoint devices and LTE/5G connectivity, transformed businesses, allowing them to compete more effectively in an increasingly digital marketplace.
While we were on pace to eventually embrace a true work-from-anywhere (WFA) strategy sometime in the next few years, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need. And after a year, workers are now demanding that employers provide a WFA option. Forecast analysis from Gartner®1 indicates that “by the end of 2024, the change in the nature of work will increase the total available remote worker market to 60% of all employees, up from 52% in 2020.” Also, according to Gartner2, “Organizations are facing a hybrid future, with 75% of hybrid or remote knowledge workers saying their expectations for working flexibly have increased.” The challenge is how to deliver a hybrid work experience safely and productively.
The Security Challenges of a Hybrid Workforce
The challenge was that few organizations were prepared for extensive work-from-home when the pandemic hit. Workers were suddenly dialing into the office from poorly secured home networks. Access controls were inadequate. Endpoint devices were vulnerable. And cybercriminals were quick to exploit those weaknesses. According to the 1H Global Threat Landscape Report from FortiGuard Labs, ransomware incidents increased nearly 1100% from June 2020 to June 2021. And in a recent global ransomware survey conducted by Fortinet, an astonishing 67% of organizations report having been a ransomware target.
Despite these concerns, most enterprises are moving ahead with a hybrid work strategy that allows employees to work at least part of the time remotely. Workers may be in the office a few days a week and working from home or remotely for the rest. These workers and their devices need to move seamlessly between those environments. They need to do this while accessing applications sitting in the cloud, data center, or SaaS environments.
To make this possible, however, enterprises must also take a “work-from-anywhere” approach to their security. They need to deploy solutions capable of following, enabling, and protecting users no matter where they are located. They need security on the endpoint (EPP/EDR) combined with Zero Trust Access and ZTNA. They need Secure SD-WAN and SASE to ensure secure connectivity. Access policy engines need to provide appropriate access based on user and device identity, location, device type, and posture to establish secure access.
The challenge most organizations face is trying to do this using a dozen or more vendors. One provides endpoint protection, another provides EDR, another does identity, and so on. There may even be different firewall vendors deployed in the data center, the branch, and on the various cloud platforms in use. Creating a cohesive and reliable solution with that many vendors is nearly impossible. Ultimately, organizations end up creating complex workarounds to get solutions to even sort of work together. And maintaining those systems takes up significant amounts of IT overhead.
Fortinet Delivers Security Built for Work-from-Anywhere
That’s why Fortinet has announced the industry’s most complete solution for today’s WFA hybrid environments. By unifying Fortinet’s broad portfolio of zero trust, endpoint, and network security solutions within the Fortinet Security Fabric, organizations can secure and connect work-from-anywhere. Fortinet delivers fully integrated security, services, and threat intelligence that seamlessly follow users on the road, at home, or in the office to provide enterprise-grade protection and productivity across the extended network.
Fortinet is the only vendor capable of delivering a unified solution to simplify and satisfy the demands of today’s three most common WFA scenarios—the corporate office, the home office, and the mobile worker:
Office: Because organizations rely on applications to conduct business, securing access to those applications, the networks to connect to those applications, and the devices that run those applications remain an essential component of a layered defense even when working from a traditional location. Given the potential for vulnerabilities to be exploited or third parties to be compromised, Fortinet delivers an integrated combination of essential tools, including:
Endpoint Security FortiClient, FortiEDR, and FortiXDR to secure remote workers and their devices
Zero Trust Access ZTNA (FortiClient, FortiOS, FortiGate) and Identity (FortiAuthenticator, FortiToken) to control and secure access to applications and other resources
Network Security (FortiGate and FortiGate-VM security platforms) to provide advanced and consistent security at campus, data center, branch, and cloud environments.
Work-from-Home: Remote and hybrid employees typically log in from a home office environment with a laptop, monitor, and external webcam. However, those home networks are often poorly secured with retail wireless routers and contain vulnerable IoT devices, which can be a pathway for hacker to gain access. Home networks also face challenges when it comes to supporting video conferences along with family members or roommates who might be consuming bandwidth with video streaming or online gaming activities. Fortinet delivers an integrated combination of managed, enterprise-grade security to home users, including:
Endpoint Security (FortiClient, FortiEDR, FortiXDR)
Zero Trust Access ZTNA (FortiClient, FortiOS, FortiGate) and Identity (FortiAuthenticator, FortiToken)
Network Security The new Linksys HomeWRK for Business | Secured by Fortinet extends FortiGate security into the home, isolates the home office, and ensures secure access to the corporate network as well as applications in the cloud and data center
Travel: Mobile workers rely on untrusted and unsecured networks to access critical business resources. This can introduce unique threats, enabling cybercriminals to intercept exposed communications or launch attacks against inadequately protected devices. To secure users on the go, Fortinet delivers an integrated combination of:
Endpoint Security FortiClient, FortiEDR, FortiXDR
Zero Trust Access ZTNA (FortiClient, FortiOS, FortiGate) and Identity (FortiAuthenticator, FortiToken)
Network Security FortiSASE Remote
WFA Security—Enhanced With AI/ML-driven Threat Intelligence
FortiGuard Labs leverages leading-edge AI and machine learning technologies to provide organizations with critical protection and actionable threat intelligence. These proprietary systems keep Fortinet security products armed with the best threat identification and protection information available by continuously monitoring the global attack surface using millions of network sensors and hundreds of intelligence-sharing partners.
Simplified Licensing to Support a Dynamic Workforce
Technology is only part of the solution. Fortinet is dedicated to expanding its FortiTrust security as a service portfolio, which offers simplified consumption and unified licensing models that can seamlessly follow users across any environment or form factor. FortiTrust empowers organizations to dynamically adapt to WFA challenges, such as shifting connectivity needs, hybrid workers, or resources that may need to move back and forth between physical and virtual environments and form factors without the need to adjust licensing schemes, enabling true network flexibility.
All Part of the Fortinet Security Fabric
All of this is available today as part of the Fortinet Security Fabric. Fortinet is the only vendor to support ZTNA across travel, office, and work-from-home, and the only vendor capable of delivering all the required components to support the three use cases of work-from-anywhere as part of an integrated and automated cybersecurity platform.
Find out how the Fortinet Security Fabric platform delivers broad, integrated, and automated protection across an organization’s entire digital attack surface to deliver consistent security across all networks, endpoints, and clouds.
Discover how Fortinet’s Zero-Trust Access framework allows organizations to identify, authenticate, and monitor users and devices on and off the network.
