Friday, March 27, 2020

The Evolution and Future of Cybersecurity

It’s hard to believe that it's been 20 years since I got my first office-issued Blackberry. Or, it might be more accurate to say, I was rewarded with the Blackberry. When I was handed that device, it felt like I had finally made it in my career and was getting a rare badge of honor that came with that success. I'd proven my ability to the company, which also meant that I'd proven to IT that I could be trusted not to compromise this treasured, cutting-edge mobile device.

Now it's 2020. Rapid advancements in enterprise technology and equally significant shifts in how people interact with it in their everyday lives have meant a few different things. End users now have an unprecedented level of knowledge about how to use technology and, even if they don't have explicitly technical skills, are using numerous sophisticated devices to perform daily tasks at work and at home.

The technology itself, its potential and the way it is implemented has begun to diverge from its familiar on-premise incarnations. And perhaps paradoxically, at a time when it has never been more important for IT departments to ensure cybersecurity, the preceding factors have made it infinitely more challenging.

By looking at a new framework for understanding how end users relate to technology and to the IT department, and seeing where things go wrong when companies try to implement old-school thinking in the new world of cybersecurity, we'll have a better idea of what it this all means for the IT pros working to manage and secure infrastructure.

In retrospect, the Blackberry was hardly a powerful device. The lengths I had to go to to get one, though, were no joke. Back in 2000, internet access at work was a privilege, not a right. The IT team exercised meticulous control over everything from the provisioning of machines to what each person was allowed to do. People had to petition to be allowed to connect to the internet. Getting a laptop from which to login remotely via VPN was often a C-level perk or only available under the most dire circumstances – an illness, necessary remote IT support or an earthquake!

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