Securing Email Attachments: File Transfer Trends for 2014

by Chris Preimesberger

With every worker likely to have three, four or five mobile devices, 2014 will see IT work on defining parameters around the use of multiple devices on corporate networks.

Big data analysis will make businesses more productive, resulting in more file sharing and collaboration among employees, partners and customers. This will add to the complexity as IT works to accommodate increased demand.

The threat of malware will increase through Trojan horse-type apps disguising themselves as innocuous apps. Hackers will use these new hacking techniques to up the ante and look to steal more important IP and enterprise research. Even children coming to work with parents present a problem as their applications and devices pose security risks on corporate networks. IT will look at ways to secure the IT environment.

If users have to enter a PIN for every app they use, they won’t bring the device in to be managed. The hunt will be on for less onerous authentication processes. The heavy lifting of authentication will be done behind the scenes, invisible to the user, and will integrate more biometric/fingerprint information for access.

Small to large organizations will need to add processes and more reporting to accommodate new rules and regulations coming from industry and government into the marketplace.

Employee reliance on collaborative workflows also will increase the pressure on IT to provide the infrastructure to meet these new demands.

By doing more with the same or fewer resources, people will need to find ways to boost their productivity. With more self-service applications that reduce reliance on IT, users can get things done more quickly with better feedback and responsiveness as they share and collaborate with internal and external users.

Enterprise IT teams will have to find ways to enable access but maintain security as users expect to have anytime/anywhere access to corporate files, information and email. They also may be transacting business away from their offices.

The cloud is great for many applications, but the more security-conscious organizations will still have reservations about comingling of data with potential data, vendor access to information and concerns about vendors giving up data to the National Security Agency. We will see many enterprises unwilling to give up control of their data, especially in highly regulated industries.

More and more organizations will virtualize their fax environments. Companies have come to realize the cost savings and productivity benefits derived from deploying a FOIP (fax over IP) server that integrates with their existing equipment to route faxes over their IP network.