Resilience Enables Scalable Responses to Security Needs
Organizations must protect the integrity of every connection amidst unpredictable change, dynamically scaling to demand and resilient in an expanding threat landscape.
“Security has to be at the heart of everything in the new world we live in. We believe it needs to be done with a platform approach that is simple, comprehensive, and based on intelligence.”
Chuck Robbins, Chair and Chief Executive Officer
- The overall number of actively protected remote devices has continued to steadily increase with no signs of abating – more than doubling (2.1×) since Spring of 2020.
- The count of daily authentications to apps today has seen a 2.6× increase versus what it was prior to the start of the massive shift to hybrid work.
Why This Is Important
Support for securing hybrid work has grown steadily, and the adoption of remote security tools protecting the remote workforce has continued. With a rise in the number of applications and devices protected, security teams have done well to scale their infrastructure and provide a solid security posture.
Future Implications
Organizations should monitor off-site work patterns used to authenticate users and adjust the supporting security infrastructure using real-time visibility into employee access and usage patterns. Organizations should further consider a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution to consolidate numerous security and networking functions.
Security adapts to demand growth from critical categories of applications.
Increasing demand in certain types of apps hints at the importance of securing what keeps us most productive:
increase in use of secured collaboration apps over the past year
increase in remote learning application use since the beginning of the 2020/21 academic year
increase in remote learning application use between 2019/20 and 2020/21 academic years; 3.5× increase from the start of the 2019/20 academic year to present
Why This Is Important
The hybrid work environment increased the usage of collaboration and education applications. While collaboration application use has stabilized over the last year, education application use varies depending on the point of the academic year, requiring scaling based on demand.
Future Implications
Organizations should monitor which applications are used the most in the current situation and upgrade those specific security and IT infrastructures confidently.
Hybrid work is dynamic, security must be able to flex with demand.
Comparison of Remote Access and On-Site Workstation/Server Access Types
protected by Cisco Secure Access by Duo
(number of daily authentications to Cisco Secure
Access by Duo)2
Proportions of remote connections to work compared to on-site connections has fluctuated over the past two years – switching from mostly on-site to mostly remote in February 2020 and back again (to about 50/50) in January 2022 – underscoring the unpredictability of work connection needs, often depending on external forces.
Why This Is Important
The back-and-forth nature of this trend highlights its unpredictability and the importance of protecting both on-site and remote workers.
Future Implications
Organizations must ensure sufficient security controls are in place for both remote and on-site work. They should further maintain plans to quickly scale remote or on-site security controls and monitor both internal and external activity for security incidents.
An expanding threat landscape needs a resilient approach.
- 60% of blocked queries are from malware sources.
- Phishing and botnet queries have grown at the fastest rate over the past six months.
Why This Is Important
The increase in multi-factor authentication usage in RDP access connections is a net positive, securing connections back into corporate networks. However, users should remain on the lookout for common attack vectors, such as phishing, as bad actors are regularly leveraging them in their attacks.
Future Implications
A zero-trust approach when allowing external connections to company resources is recommended. Organizations should leverage email security tools to detect phishing attacks and stop them effectively. Ultimately to withstand unpredictable threats, recover faster, and emerge stronger, technology must work holistically. Converged security will protect the integrity of every connected element as hybrid work becomes how seamless work is done.
Source: Cisco Hybrid Work Index
1Cisco Umbrella
2Cisco Secure Access by Duo