Some 2.8 million Americans now work permanently from home offices and a full 38 million (37 percent of the total U.S. workforce) telecommute at least once a month, Bloomberg's Businessweek reported.

For the most part, the mainstreaming of telecommuting and the arrival of the virtual or mobile office has been a positive development, both in terms of employee productivity and cost reduction. However, one of the challenges of the proliferating mobile workforce is for companies to ensure that their most-sensitive customer and corporate information is truly secure.

Here are five steps your company can implement quickly and cost-effectively:

1. Deploy comprehensive endpoint security to check endpoint devices for spyware and malware.

2. Ensure that user devices adhere to defined corporate security policies before, during, and after network connection.

3. Encrypt sensitive data and log file access to ensure that data is not compromised if a mobile device is lost or stolen.

4. Automatically filter and delete SMS spam by setting up pre-defined, configurable settings on mobile devices.

5. Restrict network access by noncompliant or potentially infected devices.