The sudden rise of the COVID-19 crisis pushed millions of people to work fully remote, even in highly sensitive industries, such as financial services, health care and government, that have previously been unable to shift employees to location-agnostic work. This shift has fundamentally altered the future of work as organizations realize the benefits of enabling more flexible options and changing worker expectations of traditional work environments. Despite the focus being on rapidly enabling short-term remote work capabilities, the COVID-19 outbreak has accelerated the adoption of technologies, such as cloud computing, bring your own device (BYOD), and the IoT, creating long-term changes in how enterprises manage network security. By analyzing trends during COVID-19, security leaders can anticipate how the future of work might change and proactively adapt their tools and operations to protect the evolving digital ecosystem.

Managing endpoint security has been a growing issue for enterprises, particularly as BYOD and IoT devices, have been introduced to corporate networks. As employees become remote, vulnerable endpoints and the possible exposed networks they use increase exponentially as every device connected to their home networks, such as smart doorbells, connected thermostats, and even gaming consoles, become potential attack routes to the enterprises.  With “zero trust,” enterprises can adapt defenses to the current crisis and be prepared to manage thousands of new endpoints with varying access to corporate networks.