Class in Session: Cisco

The H1N1 flu epidemic prompted management at many organizations to take a hard look at business continuity plans. Specifically, what would happen if a major event, such as a pandemic or natural disaster, forced them to require all employees to work from home for an indefinite period? Many are discovering they don’t support remote working to the extent that “business as usual” could be maintained in an emergency.

In a Cisco-commissioned survey of security decision-makers at more than 500 companies across the financial, retail, healthcare, government, and education sectors, less than 25% said they felt their current remote-access solutions enhance their pandemic or disaster preparedness.

Fifty-three percent of respondents said that less than half of their employees were set up to work remotely. Among organizations that support remote working at this time, 63% issue company-owned laptops to their employees. Forty-six percent currently provide smartphones, and 36% plan to commit budget for these devices in 2010.

Meanwhile, only 13% have 76-100% of employees enabled to work remotely. The top two reasons cited for not supporting a remote workforce were:

• Business requirements do not necessitate any or additional remote/ mobile workers
• budget constraints

The latter response is interesting, considering most respondents noted that a remote workforce creates positive benefits, such as increased productivity and enhanced efficiency.

Even though more than 40% of survey respondents said remote workforce security has increased in priority for their organization in the last 12 months, just 36% currently provide SSL or IPsec VPN capabilities to their remote workforce. Sixty percent intend to increase those capabilities in the year ahead, but primarily for reasons such as lowering administrative costs.

Excerpt from Cisco 2009 Annual Security Report: Highlighting global security threats and trends. Copyright © 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. Download the complete report online.