Akamai CSO: Online and Remote Work is the Future of Business
The internet is proving to be the most valuable resource at the moment, and opportunities will await those who adapt and are more prepared.
Speaking as part of the Akamai Edge conference, delivered as a virtual summit, Andy Ellis, CSO and senior vice-president at Akamai, said that where once the internet was disruptive, it is now enabling us to teach our children and talk to family members during the COVID-19 crisis.
“Maybe we’re at conferences that are recorded in people’s basements, living rooms and potentially on their back porch, and we didn’t have to travel to them,” he said. “Maybe we’re having meetings with staff no longer focused on who is in the headquarters.”
Ellis called these “opportunities for us to seize” and we can wait and “return to the world we used to be in” when COVID-19 pandemic is over, but the digital landscape is now different now. “People have tasted the opportunity where we have meetings on video rather than in person,” and support staff who can work wherever they want to be, as long as they have an internet connection.
“The world we are going to come out of this in, will be one in which the internet becomes a more crucial component of everything we do,” he said. This could be exercise, banking, work or school; “the opportunities are bound for us and those who anticipate and seize them and are prepared to adapt will come out of this more prepared for the world we will be in,” he said.
“Those who merely sit on their hands and wait, and are not prepared for the changes of the digital landscape, will be the followers. Which do you choose to be? My preference is to seize the opportunity.”
Asked by Infosecurity if he felt that threats were consistent or if they are taking advantage of a more dispersed and remote workforce and potentially vulnerable staff, Ellis followed Tom Leighton’s earlier point that attackers may have more time on their hands, but what has really happened is the environment has changed. “Businesses that were ill-prepared for the moment that we’re in are probably finding it a little more challenging to operate as where they are today isn’t where they were, and isn’t what their security was set up for,” he explained.
He added that too many businesses worked in a siloed model, and now everyone is remote “and what worked when 5% of the workforce [worked remotely] doesn’t work when 100% of the workforce is distributed, especially when they are seizing new technologies to enable them with their work which will expose you to hazards.”
This post Akamai CSO: Online and Remote Work is the Future of Business originally appeared on InfoSecurity Magazine.
