Companies that used to have perhaps 10,000 staff across 50 offices found themselves with 10,000 offices almost overnight – creating challenges for departments from HR to finance to (inevitably) security. And the security teams were further challenged with an incredibly rapid increase in COVID-related phishing scams and the speed with which adversaries, new and old, adapted their approaches to benefit from the potentially insecure access corporate employees had into their office networks. Further we saw companies and employees alike rapidly innovating and adopting new collaboration tools, some sanctioned, some not. And all of this generated an urgency for transformation the like of which few of us had ever witnessed before – deploying new technologies for network access, rolling out tools like Microsoft Teams or Zoom video conferencing, enabling employees to access corporate applications from personal devices or across unsecure internet connections (or both). Almost 12 months later it’s all starting to feel much more like a new normal. It’s settled down a lot and the technologies appear to be working well. But whilst we all take time to breathe and relax, it’s critical that businesses examine these new environments and ask a key question: We know we addressed the crisis, but did we do it the right way? In other words, if we had our time again and had the opportunity to plan it all properly would we end up where we are? Have we got an environment that just about does the job or is it optimal? And are we ready for what comes next? Did we fix the problem just for that one moment in time or did we also ensure that we’re ready for what comes next? Learn more on the session “Securely Enabling the New Workplace” from Adam Philpott, SVP, EMEA McAfee