Digital no security: flexible, remote work arrangements leave companies at risk, says Cisco’s Jeetu Patel

Logging into work by the side of a pool on a tropical island might be nice for workers, but it leaves companies exposed to breaches via unsecure Wi-Fi networks.

Logging into work by the side of a pool on a tropical island might be nice for workers, but it leaves companies exposed to breaches via unsecure Wi-Fi networks. Picture: Getty Images

Flexible working arrangements are leaving companies vulnerable to major cyber security breaches as employees access internal systems via unsecure Wi-Fi networks at cafes, hostels and co-working spaces.

The appetite for hybrid working arrangements since the pandemic struck has increasingly put companies once locked into an in-office environment at risk.

But a Cisco expert says companies should not be calling staff back into the office, and that security vendors have failed to keep up with the times and implement secure solutions for remote workers.

Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s general manager of security, said his company was increasingly looking to develop all-in-one solutions which allowed staff to work remotely without being exposed to bad actors.

“We are building a fair amount of technologies right now to make sure that you have frictionless access to applications from wherever you are, for exactly that reason,” he said.

“The thesis being that as people go remote, they’re going to need offsets. Otherwise, they will actually be at risk.”

A TukTuk driver in the heart of Bangkok’s Chinatown in Yaowarat. Picture: iStock

Cisco’s view is that the cybersecurity industry was too fragmented and too many companies provided “singular solutions”.

“This industry has now accumulated around 3500 vendors. On average, every company has between 50 and 70 providers that comprise their organisation’s cyber stack,” Mr Patel said.

“No one owns more than 10 per cent of the market, even if you count the large companies, so it’s actually a highly fractured market.”

Having to manage numerous cybersecurity products was time-consuming and tedious. “I think the security industry as a whole has done a terrible job of not having these systems be easy to use,” Mr Patel said.

“The challenge that we have right now, is that if you look at the way that this market has evolved, it’s largely evolved through Patchwork.”

Similar to BlackBerry, which uses AI to develop cyber security threat detection engines, Cisco this week released a new product incorporating the technology.

Cisco XDR, announced in San Francisco, analyses data from various sources on a computer to analyse and determine threats.

The product uses third-party cyber security solutions including endpoint detection and response, email threat defence across Microsoft 365 and Proofpoint email protection, a next-generation firewall, network detection and response and security information and event management to paint a larger picture of cyber threats.

“One of the things that’s really important to know is that no longer can cybersecurity be handled at human scale, we have to have machine scale,” Mr Patel said.

“We have to have telemetry, you have to be able to go out with analytics.”

The new product would help companies stay safe while employees logged in from remote locations.

“AI is going to accelerate the threats and the sophistication of the attacks we’re seeing now. In tomorrow’s world, it’s going to be much harder because the kind of attacks that you will see will seem like normal activity. They’re going to be a lot more personal,” Mr Patel said.

Originally published as Digital no security: flexible, remote work arrangements leave companies at risk, says Cisco’s Jeetu Patel