Most businesses say cloud is a priority in the COVID-19 shutdown: Report

Infoblox and Zogby Analytics have unveiled a research into the ongoing IT challenges posed by the COVID-19 shutdown. Half a year into the shutdown, companies are still playing catch up to optimise their remote work experience. Based on 1,077 responses from the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, China, Japan, Australia, and Singapore, key survey findings show that:

• The borderless enterprise is here to stay. More than 90% of decision-makers consider digital transformation and cloud-managed services a priority. The percentage of companies with a majority of employees working remotely more than tripled from 21% before the shutdown to 70% after. 40% of companies, twice the pre-COVID-19 rate, are permanently keeping a majority of workers remote.
• Organisations are still building out their IT infrastructure and security controls to optimise remote work. Organisations say distributing sanctioned devices (35%), building network infrastructure (35%), and securing the network (29%) are top IT challenges when transitioning to remote work.
• Threat mitigation and network visibility remain the top security concerns for the remote work environment. 68% say better threat detection and or mitigation technologies would enable more remote work for their organisations. Specifically, respondents are looking for better visibility into devices on the corporate network (65%), cloud applications workers are using (61%), and compromised devices (46%).
• Security incidents are rising. Half of the surveyed businesses are seeing more cyber-attacks—with the biggest jumps in China and Australia—while just a quarter are seeing fewer.
• Companies are reversing policies to allow the use of personal applications to foster collaboration. 63% of companies are allowing workers to connect with each other using applications like WhatsApp, Zoom, and Houseparty.
• Companies are using cloud security tools, particularly from the DDI family (DNS, DHCP, IP Address Management), to secure the borderless enterprise. 59% of companies plan on making additional investments in DNS to secure their expanded networks.

“When the COVID-19 shutdown started, organisations rushed to enable remote work overnight,” said Kanaiya Vasani, Executive Vice President, Products and Corporate Development at Infoblox. “Their top priority was making sure workers could connect to enterprise applications from their homes—sometimes through unsecured personal devices.”

“While most organisations can now accommodate the basics of remote work, this report highlights the need for more security controls,” Vasani added. “To meet that need, a majority of surveyed companies are turning to DNS to rapidly stand up a foundational layer of security for employees working from home. “Using a hybrid DNS security solution like BloxOne Threat Defense, enterprises can create a ubiquitous layer of visibility and security across their expanded infrastructure.”