With the flexible office model slowly but surely supplanting the traditional working environments in favour of dynamic co-working spaces for a number of years now, we have seen many organisations reconsider the way they think about commercial real estate.
However, as with any technology that experiences a period of rapid growth, we are now moving beyond the initial emphasis on speed to market. As Unified Communications become an increasingly essential part of the virtual workplace, we must now establish exactly how this impacts users, how it meets compliance requirements, and how secure it is.
Our initial response to COVID-19, which focused on the rapid onboarding of UC solutions, has demonstrated that we should always be vigilant when implementing new systems. Technological developments to address immediate concerns are certainly essential, but users – both personal and professional – must be conscious of any security risks and ensure they follow best practice at all times, particularly with BYOD arrangements. For example, the importance of utilising strong passwords is already well-established, but its importance was highlighted once again by recent incidents where cracked passwords have been used to disrupt online meetings, taking advantage of platforms' lack of end-to-end encryption[2]. And whilst updates are regularly released for all platforms to rectify security issues as they are discovered, this doesn't eliminate the initial risk that is posed, which means users must take the time to educate themselves, with the support of their providers.
Data sovereignty is another serious concern, particularly in sectors like healthcare, legal and finance, which have strict requirements about how and where sensitive data is stored. Recent revelations that certain platforms routed user data through different countries to meet increasing demands for capacity[3] are putting organisations' security posture into sharp focus. Going forward, providers of UC solutions must offer their users complete confidence they are compliant with all local and international data protection regulations, such as the GDPR, which may mean maintaining data centres across multiple regions.
As organisations in both the private and public sectors become more conscious of the potential security risks surrounding UC solutions, we are sure to see the establishment of clear best practice amongst both providers and users. However, this will require close collaboration between all parties concerned if we are to take a proactive rather than reactive approach to the issue, ensuring robust security is inherent in the design of all UC solutions rather than offering fixes when a breach does occur.
The current global stay at home policy has fundamentally changed how we all work. Many around the world have become accustomed to the daily use of teleconferencing tools, instant messaging platforms and shared documents hosted in the Cloud.
Twitter, WhatsApp and other means of consumer service technology are becoming part and parcel of communicating at work alongside Unified Communications (UC) technologies. As a result, the boundaries between our work and personal lives are becoming increasingly blurred.