6 Tips for Securing Remote Workers

In 2019, 62% of employees reported working from home at some frequency^[1].  Employees who have the ability to work remotely report being significantly happier and fulfilled in their jobs.  Employers gain the benefits of reduced building overhead and the ability to reduce the spread of germs during flu season. 

With all the benefits of remote workers also come security challenges.  Employees are now accessing business-critical data and operating from less secure networks.  The question is ‘how do we secure a hybrid workforce while still enabling productivity wherever they may be?”. 

Let’s break down the 6 key areas in securing remote workers both outside the network and once they return to the organization’s.

1. Email Protection

Hackers target people, organizations and in many cases any willing happy clicker.  Protect your employees from the masses of spam, phishing, malware, imposter emails and so much more with an aggressive email protection strategy.  Make sure that one of your organizations main communication tools is not an easy entry point for malicious behavior. 

2. Improved Authentication

Physical security is lost with remote workers, accentuating the need to verify the user. Multifactor authentication (MFA) provides both the verification of the user and defenses against credential theft. Adding single sign-on (SSO) enhances the user experience and productivity by providing a streamlined workflow and access to all the appropriate applications. 

3. Privileged Account Management

Privileged users need access to critical systems. Utilizing a privileged account management (PAM) solution allows organizations to defend against privileged accounts theft, provides extensive audit and reporting and eases the ability to access authorized systems securely. 

4. Endpoint Protection

We know off-network endpoints present a significant challenge for IT departments, patching, maintaining software, security updates, etc.  With the reduced control, it’s critical to have an endpoint protection solution that combines prevention, detection and response, no matter where the device is.

5. Data Protection

Data loss prevention (DLP) tools are a good gatekeeper, but what happens when the gate opens?  Data will be accessed from beyond the ‘walls’ of your network when workers are remote.  Make sure you have control of data accessed, data movement and data use.  Covering these stages, especially date use, provides protection of data throughout the lifecycle, not just from point A to B.

6. Security Operations Center 

Sometimes it takes a village…, other times it just takes a very comprehensive managed security service.  More security tools do not always result in better security.  It is certain that they do generate more logs.  When these logs are properly correlated and continuously monitored, organizations get the most out of their security stack and realize the investment.  Most importantly, an incident is identified and responded to immediately. With less control over remote workers, it is critical to improve incident visibility, management and response time.

Supporting remote workers is not something of the future.  It is a reality today and tomorrow.  Reach out to us to revisit your remote worker security strategy today!  

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^[1] https://www.owllabs.com/state-of-remote-work/2019