How do I keep my team’s distributed IT patched and secure?

An increase in homeworking, and an understandable expectation among many staff that this will continue to some degree post-lockdown, leaves businesses with a quandary: how do they ensure that their employees’ devices are fully patched and properly licenced when working remotely?

Relying on staff to manage their own devices isn’t prudent when those same devices will be used to access business data. Even the least sensitive inbox, database or shared documents may contain personally identifiable information that, if compromised, could leave the organisation liable to prosecution for non-compliance with GDPR and the UK Data Protection Act 2018. While being able to prove that all devices were fully patched and secured is unlikely to be sufficient to avoid any fine at all, it might help when arguing that the business took security