According to the findings of a poll performed by ResearchOne Marketing Consultancy, 75 percent of IT specialists said that their firms had switched to a work-from-home (WFH) setup last year to assist combat COVID-19 spread.

Google’s regulations have altered several times, initially requiring workers to return to their pre-pandemic workplaces at least three days a week but later enabling them to apply for permanent remote work or a change in the office location.

There may be 50,000+ connection points outside the traditional corporate firewall, wherever an ‘anywhere worker’ might happen to be. By vastly expanding the network’s reach through VPNs (or ‘Virtually Pointless Networks’, as they are ironically being labelled), IT leaders have ultimately lost the end-to-end visibility that they used to count on.

One of the big cyber security challenges brought about by the pandemic with the ‘work from home’ scenario is that it has caused rapid expansion of attack surface. Fifty-one percent of ME service providers have accelerated investment plans in security and this is a relatively low figure considering security, primarily DDoS security, should be a priority for every service provider.

As vaccinations roll out across the region, the move to hybrid working presents many new challenges for organizations, but it is also indicative of a greater business challenge – constant change and uncertainty. 2020 proved that it is no longer enough to prepare for the next thing. Organizations, and their networks, must be prepared for everything.