To nobody’s surprise, the ongoing management of remote workers and protecting the organization’s networks and data are the top concerns of IT professionals, according to a new report from cloud directory provider JumpCloud.
The company’s 2021 State of the SME IT Admin Report details the concerns of IT admins from one of the most trying years for the profession due to the rapid move to a remote – and now hybrid – work model and the associated cybersecurity issues.
More than 400 IT decision-makers from small- and mid-sized organizations were surveyed, and here is what we’re taking away from the report:
Remote work is presenting a huge impact on IT
This finding isn’t all that surprising considering that vast amount of cloud-based services and solutions organizations have flocked to over the last year plus, but the report confirms it.
According to JumpCloud,53.7% of respondents said the ongoing management of remote workers and people working in hybrid workspaces has been one of their biggest challenges, and 48.1% cited the cost of remote work and hybrid work solutions.
The report also suggested that IT professionals are stressing out over their organization’s remote work strategy, as 66.3% said they feel overwhelmed trying to manage remote work.
Read Next: Remote Work, Cloud Reliance Increases Attack Surface
Remote work is a money suck
As a result, remote work technologies are a huge driver in IT budgets. More than 58% said they plan to spend more on remote management technologies while 56% said they plan to spend more on security because of the increased attack surface.
About half said they plan to invest in cloud services, 47% said they plan to spend more on mobile technologies and 46% plan to spend more on collaboration solutions.
When asked if they think their organization is spending too much to manage user identities and devices, 61% of respondents said they agree, while 56% said the same about spending too much to secure or enable remote work.
“But this trend also reminds us how critical is it for SME IT managers to get every last ounce of value from every dollar of IT spend, especially when it comes to securing and authenticating remote workers and their devices,” the report said.
Remote work makes cybersecurity a lot harder
Because of that expanded digital footprint, securing an organization is now a lot more complicated. That is causing IT professionals to adopt new security concepts like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and zero trust, according to JumpCloud.
According to the survey, 84% of organizations require MFA for at least some applications, with 53% of those respondents saying its required across everything. Another 16% either haven’t gotten around to implementing MFA or don’t plan to do so over the next year.
Almost 75% of respondents also said remote work makes it harder for employees to follow good cybersecurity practices, leading to respondents ranking layered security for remote work the top security priority for the remainder of 2021.
Other top priorities include making remote work easier for end users and making device management easier.
The report highlights the importance of zero trust, a cybersecurity concept that views any user – legitimate or no – as an inherent security risk. The majority of respondents said they have already adopted the concept or plan to within the year.
However, 43% said they either do not know what it is or don’t consider it a priority, which is surprising considering the number of high-profile cybersecurity incidents and proliferation of ransomware attacks.
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