Should enterprises manage home networking IT?
The world used to be quite black and white. You worked at the office most of the time or you weren’t working at all. The pandemic made home working the new normal. From an enterprise IT and security perspective this brings new challenges. From a usability and support perspective this brings a new opportunity: enterprise managed home networking.
The challenges
- Bandwidth
Working from home means sharing broadband with others. Others who might be watching Youtube or Netflix, calling friends, playing Fortnite, Minecraft,… None of these are very compatible with the bandwidth requirements needed for Teams/Zoom/Webex or whatever other conference calls you require. Virtualised desktop [VDI] and other real-time remote working solutions are also very bandwidth sensitive.
2. Security
Your home WiFi is considered a “hostile network” by most enterprise IT departments through which hackers, ransomware, disgruntled employees, viruses,… can access the enterprise “secure network” if not protected adequately.
Some industries, e.g. financial services, will have strict regulatory rules to comply with to avoid private customer data to be “leaked” on personal devices which cannot be remotely managed and wiped if stolen.
3. Access
Access is closely related to security but slightly different. Who is accessing a laptop is quite easy to control in a closed office with cameras. A child, who accesses a parents laptop without permission, is a not a use case that was very common before home networking.
Resilience is also an access issue. What if the corporate virtual private network [VPN] or VDI solution goes down?
Worst is the threat of employees being forced to commit fraud through remote access. A banking employee used to be protected via glass in a branch. Now that they are working remotely, can somebody force them to approve fraudulent transactions or withdraw funds under pressure? It is now easier than ever for malicious competitors to get access to confidential information.
4. Support
If an employee locks themselves out of their laptop, they used to walk over to IT to get it fixed. Remote support is a lot harder. Especially if bring-your-own devices are being used.
The Opportunity
Enterprise WiFi solutions have moved towards using corporate directories for credential checking, e.g. Active Directory, and private key encryption to make sure devices are trusted.
What if your home WiFi point could have a remotely-managed work WiFi on it, similar to your guest WiFi? Your laptop would not see the difference between working from home or in the office. The IT department could make sure your work WiFi gets priority over your home WiFi so Netflix, Youtube, Fortnite,… will be impacted not your Teams call when bandwidth is low. The Work WiFi would download at night and cache urgent security and other software upgrades, so no 9 o’clock wait for upgrades to be downloaded. The Work WiFi would deal with setting up VPN, no need for users to remember [and forget] yet another password. The Work Wifi would not allow you to access Youtube, Fortnite, Netflix,… so few chances your family members would be interested in using a work device. Even advanced virtualisation techniques could be possible whereby your WiFi point does the actual Internet navigation, while your device is only accessing a virtualised version. So even if your device has a virus, it does not reach the corporate network. No document leakage possible. Also stealing a laptop and a WiFi point is harder than just a laptop. By being able to manage the WiFi point, support teams would be able to avoid many support calls [e.g. you cannot forget your VPN password if you do not need it] and assist remote workers in fixing issues because they can access the local network if required, do speed tests remotely,...
