Napera

As a working mom with a tween and teenagers, I often have to keep a loose boundary between work and home, and my laptop and smartphone are often in use as much in the kitchen as in the office. I think that’s typical of many working parents, who find some level of work-life balance by blurring the two.

It’s not hard, therefore, to imagine how easy it is for some people to also stretch the boundaries of corporate IT policy by using the company laptop for both work and personal things, like allowing their children to use the company laptop for school research or to IM with friends or to download the latest tune onto their Zune (yeah, yeah, I used to work at Microsoft and have a Zune as does one of my sons – they’re actually really good – and I don’t have to say that anymore).

Today’s mobile workforce views the company laptop as a personal productivity tool, and IT departments must take this into consideration and address the behavior and the potential security risks that come with this trend. Even with security solutions and controls in place, you still can’t guarantee that an employee or one of their kids won’t accidently download a virus or trojan or open a spam email.
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On Monday, I wrote about the need to keep corporate networks “healthy” – operating at peak efficiency, free from the ravages of unknown systems and infected machines. I said that a healthy network ensures greater productivity, higher customer satisfaction, and profitability.
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