Hi everyone,
I’m going to be traveling for a couple of weeks, and will need to work on my laptop. Unfortunately, my company blocks any location not in the U.S and needs IT to install any software, because of company policy only can install the ones they designate.
Last time I traveled I was able to use my cellphone’s data to share it with the laptop and it bypassed it but you can imagine the speed was abysmal, so had to use my own laptop. I can use my laptop again, but would like to work out of the company one. Any workaround that you may know of?
First thing I would do is talk to your manager and/or IT department. If they expect you to work while you are overseas, but also have technical barriers in place to prevent you from doing so, then there is a misalignment there that is not your problem to solve. Attempting to work around it may breach company policy and have you face disciplinary action.
From a technical perspective, if you pay for a VPN service, or are able to run your own VPN server at home, you can use a second device (laptop or mobile) to establish a VPN connection and provide a WiFi hotspot for the work laptop to connect to. A portable/travel router that supports your VPN service will also work and allow your work laptop to connect via WiFi or Ethernet. But either way, the second device needs to get its internet from somewhere, whether that’s a 4G/5G modem or connected to hotel internet.
Piggybacking on this question, there’s no way to have the VPN running directly from the work laptop? I currently run Surfshark via my iPhone and hotspot my work laptop but obviously its not as fast/reliable as if i had it directly on the laptop. Would you recommend downloading it to laptop or getting a secondary router, etc
In the OP’s question they needed IT permission to install software on the work laptop, which would include VPN clients. So unless they already had a mechanism for overseas access with such software being pre-approved (which is why I told them to ask IT) then it’s not an option. Also chances are the servers needed for work also required a VPN, and getting two VPN clients to run together on the same device is usually not possible.
I can’t imagine any company that is so strict about security that they’ll prevent access to anyone outside a specific country, while simultaneously not bothering to locking down devices to specific pre-approved software, and not having a process in place for employees working overseas despite knowing it’s required.
If that happens to be your case then again the same advice applies, talk to your manager and/or IT department and let them sort their shit out. The last thing your employer needs is random employees who don’t know what they’re doing, going and installing random shit on their work laptop to bypass security measures. Even having the “put me in the US” VPN on a separate device (phone vs travel router probably won’t make much difference for performance) was only mentioned as a technical possibility, not an actual recommendation.
So no, I don’t recommend downloading a VPN client to your work laptop, nor getting a travel router with VPN support, nor using your phone hotspot with VPN; my only recommendation is to talk to IT. Because all of these are workarounds to security measures your employer puts in place for a reason, are liable to get you disciplined, and (I can’t believe I have to spell this out) is really something for the company to figure out, not the average Joe employee to find their own little solutions for.
And that’s before you consider the cost of having to own a hotspot-capable device, paying for overseas mobile data service, and paying for a VPN service, all of which are costs that should be borne by the employer, not the employee.