By: Jim Lane
The Edge.
What is it? The Edge is where your network meets the wide-open spaces of the Internet. For many years, the Edge was where your network firewall or router met your Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) modem. Anything on the ISP side of your firewall or router has been considered unprotected from the viruses and malware that roam the Internet. For those of you with firewalls on your network, being on the inside of your network was a relatively safe place.
But what if you aren’t behind your network’s firewall? For many years, to access company resources, your technology stayed tethered the company network. In some cases, you might have a Virtual Private Network (VPN) set up so you can communicate with your company’s technology resources when you travel. This was the exception, not the rule. You soon returned to the security of your company’s network at your office desk.
Then COVID-19 hit. Everything changed.
Working from home became necessary. It was vital for employees to continue working as business couldn’t just stop. IT companies, like us, began to set people up quickly so that they could work from home and continue to access company resources. What was previously the exception, was now the rule.
So, there you are. Your company has spent thousands of dollars and years of work to protect the network and secure company data. Because of COVID, you began working from home, on your residential WIFI, using your residential ISP service and wide open to the world transmitting company data, much of which was confidential.
Then, as COVID eased, and the employment shortage began due to the Great Resignation, companies started to let employees continue from home, or take a hybrid work from home and office approach to running their companies. These situations now have become permanent.
Where is the Edge now?
The Edge is everywhere. How do we protect that?
When COVID began to take hold, and we began working from home, the technology we mostly used was to deploy firewalls to homes and set up a VPN to the office. This became unacceptable. Due to home automation, modern home networks became difficult to manage. Also,when a fourteen-year-old can’t use his PlayStation, everyone knows about it.
As technology adapted, we did also. We can now deploy a layered approach to protect company data anywhere. Compliancy such as CMMC, HIPAA, PCI, NIST 800-171 can now be met for employees working from home, traveling, etc.
Say you’re in your home, your local coffee shop, the airport. We now have solutions to make you more secure, and to protect company data wherever you are. All our solutions use a multi-layered approach.
The Edge has changed dramatically. Have you?
Please call me for more information! Our mission is to keep your company data secure!