Once a device is deployed out into a corporate environment, it’s a challenge to ensure that the device remains up to date and compliant with administrator specifications.
Another challenge is if someone plugs in a third party device, which would be non compliant with standards set by IT.
Tested and approved hardware and software systems are called standard operating environments (SOE). Deploying new equipment would follow the SOE. But applications and operating systems are constantly being updated. IT must test these updates first to make sure they are compatible with the existing environment.
Software exists to monitor company devices to make sure they are compliant. Policies can be applied to non compliant systems. This can be layered with application visibility provided by next generation firewalls to let you know what type of application traffic is going through the network. You can also perform periodic scans and compliance checks when someone logs into the network to make sure their system is in compliance before providing them access.
