DeskFlix: 'How secure is what we've done over the last few months?' - SonicWall channel boss on next phase of cybersecurity

Mike Awford advises what partners need to do next to keep their customers in a remote working world

Businesses need to assess the security of the remote working systems they've rapidly put in place over recent months, according to SonicWall channel director Mike Awford.

Awford explained that the channel and IT departments moved at lightning speed to move entire workforces to remote environments, but said that next step is making sure these infrastructures are suitable for long-term use.

The channel boss was speaking as part of CRN's inaugural DeskFlix event, joined by Exertis' Jason Hill. You can view his session for free by clicking here (short registration required).

"This is the time to rethinking what's been done and possibly rearchitect these systems," he said.

"Where we have a lot of VPN licences, for example, are firewalls now experiencing performance issues because they were never scoped initially to cope with that many remote users.

"Companies may need to consider availability and high availability units. If they didn't have them before, users are now reliant on those systems being available, so what happens if they go down? It's about upping the ante around that."

He also said that now is the time to look at adopting next-gen antivirus, which is now starting to mature in the market.

"It's much more efficient than signature based AV with a high detection rate, and interacts much further with other components now. Then obviously you have cloud which has been a challenge for a long time."