When COVID-19 disrupted our work environments and triggered a massive shift to remote work, organizations faced the daunting task of securing corporate data and apps across thousands of disparate locations and devices.
Companies, employees, and IT departments were forced to quickly adapt to this new reality of a remote-first world. The issue was further exacerbated by traditional remote desktop solutions that proved inadequate for this new landscape. The blurring of personal and professional time, the rise of gig workers, offshore employees, and the need for businesses to secure this dynamic world of remote work, strained traditional remote desktop systems like Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to their limits.
Traditional Remote Work Solutions Fall Short
Traditional VDI systems are ill-equipped to handle this shift, offering subpar user experiences due to latency, slowness and management overhead. Enterprise Browsers, although a more innovative solution, also have limitations around application use and network integration. Before Venn’s emergence, companies often resorted to shipping secure, corporate laptops to their remote employees or relied on complex, costly VDI technology to stay compliant with regulatory requirements. These solutions not only frustrate users but also fall short in terms of security, cost effectiveness and ease of use. This situation also leads to the security workaround paradox, where users, restricted by too many security constraints, seek alternate, less secure methods to get their work done. The urgent need for a better solution to secure remote work is evident.
A New Approach to Securing Remote Work
Recognizing the mounting issues associated with securing distributed workforces, David Matalon and his team at Venn Software sought to revolutionize remote work security. Having previously helped hundreds of organizations overcome compliance and security issues for remote workers, they understood the challenge at hand. With Matalon’s vision, the team started Venn, a radical and less costly alternative to VDI, and the first MDM (Mobile Device Management) solution for laptops. This vision resonated with investors, leading NewSpring Capital to support the product development and growth, resulting in a successful $29 million Series A funding round.
Recently awarded with a key patent (U.S. Patent No. 11,687,644) for a “Secure Visual and Computational Boundary for a Subset of Resources on a Computing Machine”, Venn’s approach is innovative: Remote work activity now lives in a company-controlled Secure Enclave installed on the user’s computer where all work data is encrypted and access is managed.
Similar to MDM for mobile devices, work applications run locally within a virtual wrapper, visually indicated by a Blue Border™, which intuitively demarcates protected work apps from private user applications. This method provides control over what work data can be transferred in and out of an application. This way, businesses can restrict activities like copying and pasting corporate data outside of work applications or saving a file onto a personal desktop. Even network traffic can be protected to ensure certain applications only connect to approved servers. With this approach, business activity is isolated and protected from personal use on the same device, safeguarding company data without having to control the entire device.
With Venn, employees can now use their personal computers for work without compromising security, effectively bringing BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to laptops. This not only enhances the user experience but also drastically reduces the costs associated with maintaining separate devices or running complex virtual environments.
Matalon explains, “Instead of having to buy, manage, and lock down every PC and device, remote work can now easily be secured on any BYOD or unmanaged computer. Venn gives organizations more control, without the need for costly backend infrastructure.” The granting of the patent further strengthens the company’s intellectual property and ability to expand investments in Secure BYO-PC (Bring Your Own Personal Computer) technology.
With its key patent granted, a successful Series A funding round, and growing customer validation, Venn is ideally positioned for the next phase of growth. More than 700 companies, including major players like Fidelity, Guardian, and Voya, already trust Venn to meet stringent standards like FINRA, SEC, NAIC, and SOC 2. The focus now is on driving further innovation, expanding the reach of their Secure BYO-PC technology, and helping more organizations securely navigate the world of remote work.
As the boundaries between personal and professional devices continue to blur, and remote work becomes the new norm, the need for efficient, secure, and user-friendly remote work solutions has never been greater. With Venn, businesses now have a radically simplified, cost-effective alternative that meets these needs while enhancing the user experience – setting a new bar for the future of secure remote work.
To learn more, please visit: https://www.venn.com/patent-technology-mdm-for-laptops
