By Segun Aderibigbe MBA, CISSP. Presales Manager – West Africa
Many years ago, business applications, data, and networks lived and died within the four walls of the data centre. The workforce and the work itself were bound by a tightly defined perimeter. To be productive, employees needed to physically check into the office and work on official devices. By Friday evening, work stopped until Monday morning.
That model worked 20 or 30 years ago. It doesn’t anymore.
The evolution of high-speed internet, cloud computing, and collaboration tools has enabled employees to work efficiently from anywhere. The global health crisis accelerated this shift, forcing companies to adopt large-scale remote work. What started as a survival strategy during lockdowns has now become the standard way of working.
Today, the office is no longer a building. Your workforce is mobile, and in many ways, your employees themselves have become the “office in motion.”
The Security Gap: Perimeter Models Can’t Protect a Mobile Enterprise
Most corporate security frameworks were built for a static environment – designed to sit inside the data centre. They weren’t built for a reality where employees, partners, and even customers access systems from any device, over any network, in any location.
- According to Gartner, 70% of employees globally now work remotely at least once a week.
- Verizon’s 2024 Data Breach Report highlights that 74% of breaches involve a human element, with stolen credentials being one of the leading causes.
- IDC predicts that by 2026, 60% of enterprises will adopt Zero Trust-based framework as remote and hybrid work continues to expand.
This raises the critical question: has your security model caught up with your mobile workforce?
Four Imperatives for Securing a Mobile Workforce
To truly secure access in this new reality, organizations need to embrace a security model that is data-centric, identity-driven, and context-aware. That means:
- Security must follow the data – wherever it flows, across devices, networks, and clouds.
- Secure access for all – employees, vendors, and customers should connect safely, regardless of device or location, with access limited strictly to what they are authorized to do.
- Identity context is non-negotiable – authentication should provide full visibility into who is accessing what, from where, and under what conditions.
- Threats must be blocked in real time – detection and response need to be instant, adaptive, and continuous.
Thriving in the Mobile-First Era
The perimeter no longer defines security. People do. Data does. Identities do.
Enterprises that thrive in this new era are those that move beyond static defences and embrace Zero Trust principles, dynamic access control, and cloud-native security frameworks.
Your workforce is mobile. Your business is in motion. The question is, “Is your security model is moving with it?”.