Mostly with rapidly changing situations surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations around the world face a tough challenge – the accelerated deployment of a remote workplace. Although some have been preparing for work from home all the time, others are struggling to ensure that workers can easily access workplace networks, without losing privacy. The tragic reality of our present situation is that even if many join together just to protect those most exposed to coronavirus, there are some who see this more distributed user-base as a massive opportunity for the data breach.
It is important to note that it does not mean that hackers are taking a break only because you’re not in the workplace. Their bread and butter is in fact remote work. And they are at the ready to exploit your system vulnerabilities that can bring.
Nevertheless, the last few weeks have seen a sharp rise in the number of people working from home. The global coronavirus COVID-19 epidemic is the explanation for this unexpected spike in teleworking. Many businesses have attempted to promote work from home to try and contain the pandemic. After all, almost all of the companies that have been promoting this increase in remote work have done so with a rush, without possibly considering all the concerns about corporate cybersecurity that it might require.
Many organizations have computers and a remote link in order to enter the company’s network, so the employee can access services from their own Internet connection. But, how do we make sure the whole connection process is protected?
- Server Computers
Obviously, the device which attempts to communicate needs to be protected by an advanced security solution. To improve protection, however, having an EDR program that can somehow guarantee that all processes run by that machine are trusted is vitally necessary. One such way, we can prevent cyberattacks who don’t use malicious software, as well as sophisticated attacks that can get through our computer into the company network.
Staff often use their own devices to connect company services while working remotely from home or any other place. In these situations, the organization must allow the same security measures to be implemented on these devices, or ask them not to use their own devices for official tasks. Otherwise, without even knowing, they could risk the company’s assets. - VPN Connection
To work efficiently from home or any remote location, the employees need to use all of the software and files that they usually have at the workplace. A VPN (a virtual private network) must protect the link between the device and the office network all times. It is a private network that enables you to build a protected local network without the need for physical connections between its interior gateway protocols. This also helps employees to remotely access the data of their office servers. - Complex Password
Login details used to connect corporate services, and those which we use in specific, have to be complicated and difficult to crack. Undoubtedly, it is important to make use of multi-factor authentication to certify that the connection is being requested by the right client and it is not intended for theft and fraud. Kudos to this dual certification standard for user access to company services, we can better protect access to the VPN, employee logins for company servers and resources. - Endpoint Protection
Any device that a staff member uses to access the company’s data represents an additional security risk. Your firewall may not continuously safeguard remote laptops/computers. But you still need to make sure they do have a level of safety toward malware, ransomware, spyware, email frauds, and other security breaches, even though hackers can’t use them straight into your network as a tunnel. That’s why a good endpoint protection solution for all of your remote users is important. Protecting every device individually makes it much easier to protect your network as a whole. - Training
You’ve probably already heard that human error is the most common reason for a breach. Whether from the type of configuration errors or when an employee has clicked on a malicious link/phishing sites, this same time factor is putting your office network in danger. Just as information security awareness training is essential in the workplace.
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