Is your security approach affecting employee productivity?

By Shibu Paul Today, people are rapidly embracing digitalization, benefiting tremendously from a wide variety of mobile devices and applications. However, on the flip side, they also have the arduous task of maintaining multiple credentials for accessing different apps. While ensuring secure access and security is important, the increasing layers of security controls and multiple logins have now started affecting employee productivity. Remembering so many passwords not only gets cumbersome, but also creates unnecessary obstruction in the way of critical business functions. A recent study commissioned by Dell highlights the ‘great divide’ between network security and remote or mobile worker productivity. In a poll of medium to large enterprises, 91% of business users reported that their companies’ respective security measures had a negative impact on their productivity. Perhaps a key contributor to this discontent arises from another finding in the study: 85% of respondents needed to keep track of two or more login and password combinations to access files and applications required for their daily work. [caption id=“attachment_2011939” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image: Reuters[/caption] Security vs. Productivity: The Balancing Act Anyone who has worked in a corporate setting can probably attest to the difficulty of managing multiple passwords to access business applications like Exchange, Oracle, SharePoint, Citrix, VMware View and many others. If multifactor authentication is a part of the network security equation, it adds an additional layer of peace of mind for the IT staff but further compounds the difficulty for employees striving to get their work done. Balancing the dissimilar needs of network security and employee productivity has long been a conundrum for IT professionals. Today with employees becoming more mobile and the traditional workplace being re-imagined as an anywhere, anytime work environment, the challenges are only increasing. One cannot deny the fact that network threats, from malware to malicious attackers to data leakage, are rising unabated as criminals mine for sensitive business data that can be converted to cold hard cash. Therefore, businesses do require heightened security to secure and enhance the flexible work environment for employees who are working from remote places. Most organizations are today trying to find this balance between network security and employee productivity. A Unified Approach with SSL VPNs A unified approach to security management using Secure Access Gateways (SSL VPNs) could be a solution to this problem. This method presents a single, unified and customizable login portal that serves to accept, authenticate, and pass network credentials to network resources behind the access gateway. SSL VPNs come with a unique ability, wherein they can act as a ‘central gateway’ for both office-based and remote/mobile workers to access business applications and data. In effect, employees have just one central point of login for all applications they are authorized to access, regardless of their location. They no longer need to remember multiple login points (local, remote, etc.) for their authorized network resources. This method even works well for Web-based assets such as application portals (SalesForce.com for example). This method also allows role-based control of access via Active Directory groupings. This control can be extremely granular – right down to specific device ports, if needed. In addition, a range of access methods is supported, including clientless Web access; a pre-installed or Web-delivered client; or via the MotionPro native app for iOS and Android devices. By using SSL VPN appliance as a single, unified, captive login portal for your company, you can have one user experience to rule them all while maintaining strong network security and boosting employee productivity – and remove a point of frustration as well. SSL VPN ensures the confidentiality and integrity of data. It makes it easy for people to connect through the internet from any remote place to a corporate network. The author is Regional Sales Director – India, ME and SEA, Array Networks.