How to Secure Contractor Access on Unmanaged Endpoints: What IT Leaders Need to Know

Organizations increasingly rely on contractors, from telehealth clinicians and seasonal insurance agents to auditors and specialized IT talent. This shift enables agility and cost savings, but it also forces IT teams to support BYOD environments at a scale that legacy architectures were never designed for. 

Teams must now secure business-critical apps and data on devices they don’t own or fully control, and traditional approaches like shipping laptops or relying on VDI fall short. This blog is a summary of our eBook, “How to Secure Contractor Access on Unmanaged Endpoints.”

The Rise of Contractor-Driven BYOD

Contractors now represent a major share of the workforce, with millions opting for flexible, independent work. BYOD benefits both sides; contractors prefer using their own machines, and organizations avoid provisioning short-term hardware. But when personal and unmanaged devices blend personal activity, multiple clients, and corporate access, the security risks escalate quickly.

Where Remote Access Goes Wrong

Unmanaged endpoints introduce risks that organizations can’t ignore:

• Data leakage through downloads, screenshots, or personal cloud apps
• Weak security hygiene, from missing encryption to outdated antivirus
• Shared or unsafe environments, including family use and public Wi-Fi
• Offboarding gaps, where data may linger after access is revoked
• Shadow IT, as contractors use unapproved tools to move faster
• Fourth-party exposure when contractors subcontract work

For regulated sectors like healthcare, finance, and education, these weaknesses also create significant compliance liabilities.

Why Traditional Approaches Fail

Shipping laptops attempts to restore control but creates high operational overhead, lost devices, slow onboarding, and poor scalability, especially for seasonal or project-based workers.

VDI/DaaS offers centralized access but often introduces performance issues, Mac limitations, user frustration, heavy maintenance, and hidden costs. 

What IT Leaders Need Instead

Modern contractor work breaks old assumptions. There’s no perimeter, no uniform device, and no clean separation between personal and professional activity. Organizations need a way to secure data directly at the endpoint while respecting user privacy, avoiding latency, and scaling without hardware or virtual desktop complexity.

The Modern Approach: Secure Enclaves

A secure enclave creates a company-controlled, encrypted workspace on any laptop – PC or Mac, unmanaged or third-party managed. Inside this environment, business apps run locally, data stays contained and encrypted, and customizable DLP policies govern actions like copy/paste and file movement. Personal activity remains private, and IT gains visibility and consistent enforcement without taking over the entire device.

Why It Matters Now

Contractors and third-party specialists are now embedded in daily operations, not edge cases. Leaders who modernize their contractor access strategy can reduce third- and fourth-party risk, strengthen compliance, accelerate onboarding, cut VDI and hardware costs, and finally support a secure, scalable BYOD model.

You can read the full eBook here.