A leading factor in this shift is the rise of remote work – fuelled by COVID. Employees are now frequently, if not permanently, working outside of the office. The traditional domain security model (castle-and-moat) struggles to be effective with so much work occurring outside of the corporate network. As a result, topics like “zero trust” are quickly becoming top-of-mind for many Kiwi IT leaders.

The desire for heightened cybersecurity has Microsoft Partners like Mobile Mentor on a crusade to bring modern endpoint security to the forefront. The company has long been advocating for a transformation in modern security, first with mobile device management and now through cloud management of all devices. 

Mobile Mentor won Microsoft’s 2021 Partner of the Year for Modern Endpoint Management and plans to spread their message of modern-work security at this year’s CIO Summit in Auckland.

Moving to Zero Trust

“The zero-trust, infrastructure we’ve adopted guarantees a new level of security for companies moving away from the use of legacy servers and VPNs for remote work,” says Jared Pedersen, Mobile Mentor’s Head of Sales in New Zealand. “Cloud-based security is “the now” and “the future” of securing company data for a mobile workforce. IT leaders must recognise that legacy thinking will leave their groups vulnerable to cyber-attack. The time to adopt new security reassurances is now.”

Zero trust is a new security paradigm that is designed for distributed work. It assumes breach, and verifies the device, authentication, compliance, geolocation, network type, and other aspects to ask for additional credentials or outright block access based on risk profile.

Cloud Device Management

For devices themselves, cloud management provides a way to ensure devices remain up to date regardless of where they are located. Compliance controls, app updates, OS updates, and more can be pushed to devices from any internet connection.

“By leveraging the remote device management capabilities of Microsoft Intune, companies can keep not only their Windows devices more secure, but can secure personal devices as well. Traditional device management is more expensive and harder to implement when devices are no longer attached to the corporate network,” says Shane Sloan, Program Manager at Mobile Mentor.

Cloud management means that your devices will be kept evergreen: Patched and current. No security is perfect but out- of- date devices are an especially risky attack vector. 

Talk to an Expert in Modern Endpoint Management

“It’s important that we, as a community of IT leaders, gather regularly to address challenges and victories that impact our world,” says Pedersen. “Events like the NZ CIO Summit are crucial for bringing together forward-thinking minds to share and debate ideas. It betters our industry, and challenges IT leaders to consider how we think about modern cybersecurity.”

The CIO summit serves to celebrate innovative technology solutions and spawn conversation between thought leaders on topics such as digital ethics, productivity and cybersecurity. This year, Mobile Mentor will focus their efforts on reaching out to attendees to discuss leveraging Modern Endpoint Management as a means of bolstering the defence of New Zealand companies.

“Were very excited to be present at this conference and feel like we can offer concrete solutions to companies looking to further their security in the modern work environment. It’s a great opportunity to come forward and discuss creating a more secure cyber landscape for us all,” concludes Pedersen.

The group will be available to speak with attendees of the CIO summit from November 23rd to November 24th and can be found at booth 18.

CONTACT MOBILE MENTOR