Workers who needed remote solutions at the start of 2020 now experience a complete cultural transformation that provides numerous benefits for both employers and employees. Employee satisfaction is rising because remote work delivers enhanced work-life equilibrium enhanced efficiency and uncertainty-free work options across all locations. Businesses receive savings from office space costs along with the advantage of selecting employees from broader talent pools across wide areas.
The distance work transformation faces various hurdles in its path. Remote work distribution creates security challenges which require organizations to develop new cybersecurity approaches because of data breaches ransomware attacks and phishing scams.
The following steps establish security measures for your remote workplace to protect operations while making certain neighbours' future successful.
Top Remote Working Security Risks
First and foremost, remote work can be your biggest threat to your network’s security.
When the team is working remotely at scale, it presents new challenges to cybersecurity with an increased risk of malware incidents, data breaches, and even coordinated phishing attacks. This makes security everyone’s responsibility.
To get a clear understanding of the possible security solutions, we need to first outline the risks of allowing employees to work from home.
The most common remote work security issues companies should be aware of are the following:
Unsecured Personal Devices & Networks
Everyone from freelancers to full-time remote employees uses unsecured devices, operating systems, and networks for both work and non-work purposes. As a result, they’re more vulnerable to threats that are less common in the office environment.
Strengthening endpoint monitoring and integrating dark web monitoring for business can help reduce these risks, especially when personal laptops or home Wi-Fi setups introduce additional vulnerabilities.
Inexperienced Users
For cybercriminals, remote working means more opportunities. The growing number of inexperienced users working from home has caused a huge expansion of phishing attacks. Another issue is that people working remotely are less likely to follow corporate procedures like cybersecurity measures.
Insecure Passwords
Rather than cracking sophisticated corporate-owned software, cybercriminals will try to exploit inexperienced users who safeguard their accounts with weak passwords to access sensitive company information.
Repeat passwords are another risky practice that hackers exploit. Once an account is cracked, they will try to access other accounts that use the same password.
To prevent that, businesses have to create a system of regular, forced password changes for their remote workers.
Phishing Schemes
The top cyber threat is email phishing scams. In 2019, individuals and businesses lost more than $3.5 billion from phishing schemes. Cybercriminals who specialize in phishing trick a victim into providing sensitive information, including personal login credentials, and banking and credit card information, which can be used to hack into accounts, steal more sensitive data, carry out identity theft, etc.
Organizations can reduce these threats by regularly scanning their domain with a domain analyzer to detect vulnerabilities in SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and DNS records that attackers might exploit for phishing or spoofing.
Video Attacks
Another common insecure practice is Zoombombing, in which hackers use hijacking threats to spread malicious content. Zoom bombing constitutes cyber-harassment by individuals who join meetings on the Zoom video platform without an invitation. The unauthorized access of attackers into a Zoom meeting creates this harassment scenario. The abusive actions of Zoom bombing include spreading hateful content or showing pornographic material and making prank videos for online platforms. Uninvited users can discover active Zoom meetings because meeting IDs sometimes remain as part of the URL which enables easy access.
Weak Recovery Systems
Having a reliable backup system and a team of cybersecurity experts can save your business. The best defense is a good offense.
8 Best Security Practices for Working Remotely
Is your team currently remote? Are you looking to make the transition to remote working in the future? Here are some tactics you can take to protect your company’s data and secure your team no matter the location.
1. Have a Clear Cybersecurity Policy & Offer Training
If your team works remotely, you must implement new strategies to ensure your company data is always secure. This is why having a cybersecurity policy at the workplace is a must.
First, make sure any device that remote employees use is equipped with firewalls, antivirus software, and spam filtering tools. You might even consider investing in a management platform so that you can easily (and remotely) wipe them of any sensitive data if the device is lost or stolen.
Cybersecurity training is the next step as it will help remote employees be aware of the threats. It’s also important to educate them on best practices like controlling your personal data on the internet, which can reduce exposure to phishing and social engineering attacks. Without a proper strategy and training, your remote workforce can easily become an easy target for cybercriminals to hijack your business’s network.
To prevent this from happening, consider having quarterly training sessions to keep your employees informed on threats and their responsibilities during working remotely. Draft a policy document that will set clear rules and security protocols you expect from your employees to comply with:
- Whether employees are allowed to use personal devices during remote work
- Whether employees are allowed to install non-work related software on corporate-owned devices
- How employees should report suspected attacks
2. Opt for Strong VPN Connections
Virtual public networks (VPNs) are similar to firewalls and provide three main benefits:
- Allow employees to access resources remotely
- Provide encrypting connections
- Enable access control for corporate networks
Simply put, VPNs are security tools for remote employees that create secure connections over the internet by encrypting data. Data security through encrypted internet connections forms the core reason why VPNs serve as essential tools for remote work environments. The combination of a VPN with your device produces a safe passing route to your company network which protects both your information and your communication from unauthorized access.
Remote work needs VPNs as they offer secure data transmission via encrypted internet connections to protect company information against cyberattacks. The combination of a VPN with your device produces a safe passing route to your company network which protects both your information and your communication from unauthorized access.
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3. Embrace Cloud-Based Solutions
More so now than anytime in history, cloud-based solutions are available to small and mid-sized businesses and not only to large, enterprise organizations. A large array of service platforms like Office 365 and QuickBooks Online offer 24/7 access and easy-to-use business solutions with updated security features that are compliant with industry best practices and regulations.
Keep in mind that cloud platforms don't always provide comprehensive backup coverage, so implementing dedicated solutions like NAKIVO Microsoft 365 backup software ensures your business data remains protected against accidental deletions, ransomware, and compliance gaps.
4. Use Data Encryption for Digital Security
Data encryption, in cybersecurity, is an essential privacy safeguard where a company’s sensitive data is encoded and can only be accessed by a user who has the correct encryption key.
Simply put, encryption is the process of converting data into code or ciphertext. Only those who possess the cipher can access, decrypt and use the data. By using data encryption you will not only be able to protect your company’s data confidentiality but also add a layer of security for your remote working team.
The conversion of plain text into ciphertext through encryption allows organizations to shield their data from different cyberattack methods including ransomware as well as malware.
Encrypted data provides multiple advantages including the protection of stolen data which becomes incomprehensible for cyber attackers. The system protects sensitive information through its data privacy mechanism which restricts authorized personnel from handling confidential material. Data remains authentic because encryption safeguards the information from unauthorized changes. Hash function tools under cryptographic methods evaluate stored and transmitted information for unauthorized modification to maintain data accuracy. Secure communication channels become available because encryption enables the safe exchange of sensitive data along with lowered interception risk during collaboration.
5. Use Passwords Managers
According to a survey conducted by the National Cyber Security Center, the most common passwords are “123456”, “111111”, “qwerty”, and even “password”. So you must require employees to use unique passwords as this can help you ensure sensitive data safety.
Weak and reused passwords are a major risk to your remote business model.
The only way to keep track of everything is to use password managers, especially a dedicated password manager for IT teams that allows administrators to centrally enforce policies, automate rotation, and maintain full visibility into credential usage.
Popular password managers include:
6. Apply Two-Factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication is a remarkably effective practice in preventing security breaches.
Using two requirements for login instead of one (e.g. using credentials like username and password in combination with either a secret question or pin code) will make it hard for malicious hackers to access your company’s security networks and systems.
It’s like adding an added layer of login security protection.
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7. Help Employees Secure All Devices
Speaking of the remote work model, many companies have a Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policy. While this method is great for many reasons, it also may cause security risks.
For true security, require your remote team to use employer-provided devices and plan your remote IT logistics so every employee gets properly configured hardware. Plus, give employees the tools they need to secure their network, assess vulnerabilities, and monitor attacks.
To further reduce risk, organizations should also protect endpoints with EDR solutions. EDR cybersecurity continuously monitors endpoint devices for suspicious activity, detects threats in real time, and enables rapid containment and remediation of attacks.
8. Make Sure Internet Connections Are Secure
That doesn’t mean your employees can’t work from their homes or neighbourhood coffee shops. Instead, make it clear to your remote talents that working in public spaces will require the use of your company VPNs to secure connections.
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Conclusion
Businesses have learned many lessons since the remote revolution took its course. Remote working might be the next big thing for their company and teams, but there are risks.
When working remotely, being secure and staying professional go hand-in-hand. That’s why it’s essential to bring remote work security to a whole new level and make it an integral part of your workers’ training and workplace culture.
