To work effectively and provide quality experiences, customer service agents are required to access sensitive customer data. Addresses, birth dates, and other personal information that customer service professionals — such as call center staff — need access to in order to do their jobs, is the very information that bad actors can use to carry out hard-to-spot hacking attempts, including phishing and ransomware.
To access this aforementioned sensitive information, customer service professionals (and other remote workers) who are not in a physical office, often utilize Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). VDI technology was designed to segment a company’s data using virtual machines that host virtual desktops, which users access remotely from their devices. The virtual desktop is delivered over a network to the user’s endpoint device, such as a laptop, allowing the user to interact with the data through a glass pane separating the data from the untrusted device.
In theory, this sounds great, as individuals using VDI technology should prevent data from leaving the data center. However, providing outside access to sensitive customer information through VDI is complicated to setup, expensive to purchase and manage, and does not provide the security controls needed to reduce the risk of a breach or data loss. This is particularly true given the discovery of recent hyperjacking hacks, which are difficult-to-spot threats that provide bad actors access to everything connected to the server.
This risk is where Browser Isolation comes in.
Browser Isolation has replaced outdated VDI technology that is more effective at securing companies and individuals from breaches and less expensive. Browser Isolation offers a secure replacement for VDI that provides employees, contractors, and third parties with access to enterprise cloud applications without using agents.
Here is a primer on how Browser Isolation works and why it’s the perfect VDI replacement for your organization.
How Browser Isolation works
Browser Isolation streams the protected content that remote employees and contractors need as pixels to the user’s browser, isolating the data from the device to the resource. This isolation safeguards sensitive data and prevents unauthorized downloads by users on unmanaged or risky devices. The session is completely isolated from other applications or websites that may be open in the browser, making it impossible to move data from an application to an untrusted location or device.
This isolated session ensures that only authenticated users on compliant devices can access sensitive information while preventing any malicious activity, such as data leakage or insider threats.
Advantages of Browser Isolation over VDI
Browser isolation eliminates unnecessary agent installs and infrastructure required for traditional VDI solutions, saving time and money. It also provides secure access for remote users in just a few clicks without compromising the user experience or performance of applications. Browser Isolation offers granular control over user access with features such as authentication enforcement, SSL Decryption, DLP, and malware prevention, which are unavailable with traditional VDI solutions.
Reduce datacenter footprint and lower costs
By utilizing Browser Isolation technology for your organization’s end users, contractors, and third-party vendors, you can eliminate or reduce your data center footprint, significantly lower operating costs, and reduce management overhead. As a result, you can save money on hardware purchases and staffing that other solutions require, including their complex configurations and more resources to get them up and running correctly.
Organizations can also take advantage of automatic updates that occur in real-time without interruption, ensuring users always have secure access to the application without needing a VPN, any IT intervention, installation of agents, or any complex configuration. With these features combined, organizations no longer worry about costly VDI investments or IT maintenance fees when providing remote access to company-owned resources.
It’s become apparent that organizations will continue to rely on third-party customer service agents, remote workforces, and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies, all of which increase cybersecurity risk. To combat these risks, businesses must provide secure access to critical resources with minimal disruption or cost.
Traditional VDI solutions can be complex and expensive, sacrificing application user experience and performance. By replacing your existing VDI solution with Browser Isolation, you can ensure fast and secure application access for all your users on any device, making it the perfect VDI replacement for your organization’s needs.
