The number of employees who work remotely has been increasing at an incredible velocity. The pandemic sped up the migration to remote work models. Organizations realized that remote work has many advantages.
First of all, remote work removes location limitations, and companies can hire employees from all over the world now. Furthermore, remote work lowered labor costs and diminished office expenses.
Although there are several reasons to choose the remote work model in today’s business world, organizations may face some issues too. Cybersecurity concerns are more obvious in remote work.
The first reason is companies can not monitor and follow user activities as they did in on-premises Business models. On the other hand, remote work requires remote access to the company network.
This brings cloud environments to our lives. Both remote access and cloud environments increase security issues and make companies more prone to cyber-attacks.
In this article, we will discuss some practices that are necessary to create a safe remote work environment.
Remote Work Security Fundamentals
1. Identity and Access Security
User identities and access authorization are the key elements of remote work security. First of all, organizations should create reliable identity verification architecture. Only allowed users should access vulnerable company resources.
Unauthorized access increases the data breach possibility and causes damage to the company. There are several ways to guarantee authorized access to the resources, and we will explain them in the following parts.
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2. Wide Monitoring and Auditing
Companies must monitor and follow user behaviors to detect threats before they harm company resources. An ideal remote work policy should cover adequate digital Tools to provide companies with developed monitoring and auditing.
It is challenging for IT teams to monitor all user activities, especially in companies with numerous employees. IT teams need more time, energy, and effort to observe and evaluate user behaviors in remote work models.
Here, automated monitoring systems come into place. Automatization simplifies monitoring activities and offers real-time threat detection.
(You can visit https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8256801 to learn more about real-time threat detection.)
Thanks to automated monitoring systems, IT managers can spend their time and energy on different parts to provide security. It is advantageous for employers because they can save money from IT charges.
3. Employee Training
Employee training is another aspect of secure remote work. In remote work models, security is a shared responsibility between the user and provider. Remote workers should be aware of threats and protection methods.
Phishing attacks are common in organizations. Cybercriminals send original-looking e-mails with links to the workers and make them click these links. Employees download malware to business devices, and data breaches happen.
The first step towards phishing protection is to educate employees about phishing risks. Then, they must learn How To recognize phishing communications.
Even if they click malicious links, they must know what to do next. Notifying managers and IT workers is one of them.
Companies should consider human factors. Risks are not only come from the outside. People inside the network can pose a risk to network security.
CISO reported that human error is the main cybersecurity vulnerability of their organizations in the UK and France. As a result, employee training should be in the remote work security policy.
Secure Remote Work Key Practices
1. Remote Access VPN
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and protects data traffic. It constitutes a tunnel between the resources and the endpoints. This tunnel encrypts vulnerable data and avoids data breaches.
Cybercriminals can not use this data even if an attack incident occurs since it is encrypted. On the other hand, securing remote workforce is simple with remote access VPN since it reassures remote employees.
Remote access VPN connects different devices with private networks. It is a special kind of VPN and carries the fundamental features of VPNs. Thanks to remote access VPN, remote workers can securely access company resources without compromising on velocity.
Remote access VPN presents more inclusive protection and enhanced connection between the points. Data remains safe since it travels through the virtual private tunnel.
On the other hand, remote workers can share information with headquarters without facing security breaches.
2. SASE (Secure Access Service Edge)
SASE is another remote work security measure that companies can implement. It brings a holistic approach to cybersecurity. SASE is compatible with remote work models because it is cloud-based. It brings network, App, user, and data protection tools together.
Modern businesses require SASE since it offers many developed security measures. SASE is easy to install so, companies can immediately start to benefit from it.
SASE is one of the methods that function well in remote work models. It protects the company network from both internal and external threats.
3. Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
Multi-factor authentication is a verifying method. Users should verify their identities with two or more steps. Passwords are insufficient to verify user identities in MFA. Users should prove their identities with biometrics, one-time codes, or other verification methods.
It adds an extra layer of protection and avoids unauthorized access to the company network. We stated that identity and access security are vital in remote work security. MFA offers a great authentication and verification procedure to users.
4. Zero Trust Security
Zero Trust is also an effective way to level up remote work security. Companies should add Zero Trust to their security policies to catch up modern necessities of the cyber world. Zero Trust embraces the idea of always verifying and never trusting.
It is all about removing privileges and diminishing security weaknesses. Verifying a user’s credentials all the time can accelerate security levels.
Companies can be sure that the people trying to access the resources are the people they claim to be. It is vital to the security of vulnerable resources.
In Conclusion
Creating a secure remote network policy requires several considerations. First of all, organizations should determine their priorities and weaknesses. Then, they should adopt one or more security tools to provide fundamental protections.
Monitoring, auditing, verification, and access controls are the main parts of any remote work security architecture.
Virtual Private Networks, remote access VPNs, Zero Trust architecture, MFA, and employee training are the prior tools and elements of remote access security.
As a business owner with remote employees, choose the proper security solution for your remote work model.
