Users, BYOD, and the obliteration of the perimeter

The power that is afforded to users, devices, and applications has exponentially increased over the last half-decade and with the proliferation of that power comes an ever-increasing multi-faceted patchwork of potential future failures for all infrastructures. Add the increasing complexity and reliance that the cloud offers and the problem of maintaining control and management of all those moving parts, which all exist by default outside of the boundaries of any perimeter, and things go from bad to worse at light speed.

In the past, it was a necessity for users to physically be present at their place of employment for them to have any connectivity or access to network systems, and in many cases, even computer technology. Over the last two decades, the reduction in cost of personal computing devices, and the power that those devices wield, has benefited the user population but has confounded infrastructure security. The...