Secure home office with Linksys HomeWRK, powered by Fortinet
Fortinet
Today's companies are constantly developing new ideas and strategies to improve their business. One of their main goals is to optimise productivity in order to deliver the quality of service demanded by today's customers. Traditional office spaces were intentionally designed to improve productivity and employee collaboration. But the pandemic forced many companies to switch to a remote working model almost overnight, throwing business strategies and IT teams into turmoil. And although companies are now welcoming employees back to the office, there is no return to pre-pandemic expectations. Instead, employers and employees alike are looking to a new hybrid working model to manage overhead, provide flexibility and a better work-life balance, while ensuring productivity and security.
Employees have claimed that their productivity has not decreased while working from home during the lockdown. A new study from Stanford University backs this up. It shows that productivity increased by 47% in 2020, with remote working accounting for most of this increase. This increase in performance was mainly attributed to a more comfortable work environment, resulting in fewer or shorter breaks and sick days.
However, technology also prevented these productivity gains from being even more remarkable. In the aftermath of the quarantine, many companies rushed to create temporary solutions and workarounds to allow their employees to work remotely. As a result, however, these employees regularly struggled with dropped calls or video wobbles due to a weak internet signal or devices competing for bandwidth at home. According to a recent survey, 84% of employees who work from home said they suffer from an unreliable internet connection. And nearly nine out of ten employees who work from home said they lost an average of more than 30 minutes of their working time per day due to connectivity problems.
Secure connectivity is key to employee productivity
Employee productivity is critical to any business, and poor or slow internet at home affects how employees perform in their daily tasks. Cybersecurity plays an equally crucial role. If a connection is not secured, the internet can become a stomping ground for criminal activity. Last year, researchers at FortiGuard Labs found that cybercriminals have quickly shifted their attack strategies to home workers and their often unsecured networks. Exploits targeting consumer devices and unpatched systems quickly replaced traditional network-centric attacks as criminals sought to compromise private devices. Ransomware attacks also increased by more than 1070% last year, with several high-profile attacks originating from remote workers. According to the latest Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average cost of data breaches in 2021 is $4.24 million per incident, with nearly 20% of organisations reporting that remote work was a factor in a data breach.
Today's IT teams remain under intense pressure to enable their employees to work effectively at home while protecting the corporate network and devices from security threats. And not just from external threats, but also from malware and phishing attacks introduced through home networks. You need a permanent, enterprise-grade solution to solve this problem.
Introducing Linksys HomeWRK for Business - Secured by Fortinet
Fortinet and Linksys have combined their respective expertise in security and connectivity to create a new networking solution for businesses. It is designed to improve productivity, optimise the user experience and maintain security for employees working from home.
Linksys HomeWRK is a next-generation router and firewall that provides secure, high-speed network connectivity for businesses and home users in one integrated device. The Linksys HomeWRK for Business | Secured by Fortinet features the latest Wi-Fi 6 with mesh technologies, enabling businesses to provide their employees working from home with a reliable connection prioritised for business communications and collaboration tools. A flexible, cloud-based management console also gives IT visibility of all devices connected to the corporate network.
- A two-in-one solution. Linksys HomeWRK enables businesses to transform home networks into enterprise-ready work environments. It allows IT teams to set up a secure network domain within the home network with its own SSID and protocols that can be configured and managed remotely, while home users can maintain and fully control their personal - and private - home network.
- Enterprise-grade network security for home offices. Linksys HomeWRK for Business | Secured by Fortinet provides enterprise-grade security from Fortinet for the corporate domain and separate, local protection for the home network. The solution provides secure remote access to the corporate network for remote workers, as well as advanced anti-virus, web filtering, intrusion prevention, app control, botnet control and IPSec VPN access. Employees working from home can enjoy the same security at home as they do on-site to protect sensitive corporate data from cyber-attacks without compromising their privacy, protection or control over their home network.
- Fast mesh Wi-Fi for business and home networks. Featuring the latest Wi-Fi 6 tri-band technology, it provides employees at home with a powerful connection to the corporate and home network through a single device. Employees get ubiquitous Wi-Fi coverage and seamless roaming, while wide coverage, bandwidth optimisation and QoS ensure they can do so without weak signal or dead spots.
- Real-time centralised management. A single management console provides real-time visibility so IT teams can centrally monitor the performance of all devices connected to the corporate network - anywhere, anytime. Zero-touch provisioning streamlines employee onboarding with simple plug-and-connect devices that require no complicated cabling for provisioning.
- Optimised for employee collaboration. Linksys HomeWRK for Business | Secured by Fortinet is designed to provide users with high-quality online meetings at home, prioritising bandwidth for collaboration tools like Zoom. Employees can communicate clearly with colleagues, customers and partners, improving work performance, team collaboration and customer satisfaction.
- Personal privacy protection. The solution supports multiple networks for separate personal use. Employees have full control and confidentiality over their personal and guest networks, allowing household members to use secure and fast connections for non-corporate devices. Corporate IT has no visibility or access to employees' private network activities, devices or connected resources.
- Affordable Hardware-as-a-Service. Linksys HomeWRK's affordable subscriptions eliminate the need for upfront investment and require minimal maintenance and upgrades by IT staff. The solution is scalable and new users can be easily added as the business grows.
Organisations are embracing a new hybrid working model to give today's workforce the flexibility and productivity they need to compete in today's digital marketplace. The Linksys HomeWRK for Business | Secured by Fortinet solution helps businesses create a secure digital workspace with enterprise-class network security for their employees who work from home. Zero-touch deployment makes it easy to set up and manage, giving your remote workers secure remote access to all the resources they need to do their jobs without sacrificing the data protection and availability they expect on their home network.
Linksys HomeWRK is expected to be available in Europe from Q1 2022.
If you are interested in a Fortinet FortiGate security solution, we would be happy to advise you. Contact us for a free initial consultation via our phone number, email address or contact form.