how to secure remote access employees

Full Answer

Is your remote workforce secure?

While providing that remote access is convenient for employees and often a productivity advantage, it requires the right measures to enable a secure remote workforce, support business continuity and protect your network because information security is a major concern.

How do you secure remote employees?

To begin, secure remote employees by encouraging them to lock computers when traveling physically. If there’s no physical access to their device, the chances of foul play remain low. Secondly, when employees work in public locations, instruct them to be aware of any onlookers when typing in sensitive information, such as logins or passwords.

How can remote access technologies improve employee security awareness?

With multiple secure remote access technologies in place, cybersecurity professionals can maintain a secure web browsing experience that minimizes network exposure to potential security threats or malicious actors. Employee security awareness remains an organization’s biggest security challenge.

How do companies enable workers to work remotely?

From a technology standpoint, most companies who are not traditionally fully remote can provide connectivity, hardware and infrastructure to enable a fixed percentage of workers to work from home. When shelter in place swept the nation, nearly every business’ static remote portion of the workforce skyrocketed.

What are the risks of remote access?

Many potential risks accompany vendor remote access —from introducing malware into your systems to technical and business dangers.

Why is remote access important?

It is essential for these individuals to have safe, anytime, anywhere access to corporate networks and services.

What percentage of Verizon network intrusions exploited weak or stolen credentials?

According to Verizon’s Data Breach Investigation Report, “76 percent of network intrusions exploited weak or stolen credentials.” Since vendors don’t need constant access to your network, they often use one remote access tool license and share generic logins and passwords across technicians. This makes the credentials easy for hackers to guess. What’s more, the vendor’s ex-employees often retain remote access to your systems.

What is the Telework Enhancement Act?

The Telework Enhancement Act requires federal agencies to have policies to govern and promote teleworking. Between teleworkers and vendors, we are challenged to enable secure access for increasingly large and diverse workforces, while simultaneously dealing with smaller budgets and tightening compliance mandates.

What happens if you give access to an outsider?

Recognize that granting system access to an outsider lowers your security level to that of the external provider. If they lack strong security controls, they become your weakest link. If a hacker compromises their system, that partner can become a backdoor into your environment .

Why is reducing network entry points important?

By reducing network entry points to the least amount that are necessary, you increase your ability to monitor and block unwanted activity on your network.

Where should a server be placed?

Because of this, NIST recommends; in most cases, that a server should be placed at an enterprise's network perimeter so it serves as a single point of entry to the network and enforces the remote work security policy before any remote access traffic is permitted into the enterprise's internal networks.

Why don't companies allow remote work?

For various reasons, some employers discourage or don’t allow remote work. Manufacturers may feel it’s unfair to let operational staff work remotely when plant and warehouse workers have to come in. The office environment is naturally conducive to building friendships, fostering teamwork and encouraging collaboration.

Why is remote work important?

Remote work gives you a lot more flexibility to balance work and home life. You no longer have to commute, saving time and money. Remote work can also eliminate regular office distractions, making you more productive.

What is VPN in remote office?

VPN – Virtual Private Network – You can restrict access so that employees must exclusively connect through a VPN, providing a direct, encrypted connection between their remote device and the main office server. This is a way to offer full, but secure access to remote employees. Be prescriptive about which VPN tools employees use.

How to make sure employees stay in the loop?

Keep in contact with your employees and make sure they stay in the loop. Advise them to take breaks as they would if they were in office, and to create their own special work environment at home.

What to do if your company works with sensitive information?

If your company works with sensitive information, you want to be especially careful in setting up remote access. You’ll want to limit access, printing or downloading for records like:

Can you work remotely and in office?

One of the easiest ways is to allow employees to work from home. Obviously, working remotely and in-office are not the same. You don’t have the same fluid interactions between employees as when they’re within walking distance from each other. Paperwork and contracts can’t be passed around.

Is working remotely challenging?

Working remotely can be challenging for everyone at first. Don’t get discouraged.

Why Is Secure Remote Access Important?

Secure remote access is important for three reasons: to safeguard and protect intellectual property; to increase employee productivity, and to enhance an organization’s competitive advantage. Organizations can confidently deliver on their current goals and innovate to achieve new ones when employees can work securely from everywhere.

What is remote desktop access?

Remote desktop access is an older and still popular method for accessing resources, typically on a corporate LAN. In this case, a user will connect to a physical or virtual computing instance located on the LAN. Popular examples include Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Virtual Network Computing (VNC).

Is Google Chrome secure?

Most web browsers, like Google Chrome, provide some level of security for a secure web browsing experience. However, a successful secure remote access strategy provides organizations more control of the web browsing experience, eliminating reliance solely on web browser vendors for a secure web browsing experience.

1. Reinforce network security standards

First and foremost, enterprises need to start adding the rigor back into their systems and processes.

2. Bolster home network security

Home network systems use personal equipment or devices provided by a broadband provider. Network security teams must work with remote users to bolster security for home networks by using the following steps:

3. Establish endpoint protection

To manage the network security environments, teams must reestablish endpoint protection, which requires the following steps:

4. Consider new and innovative alternatives

Once upon a time, it was common for employers to provide work-from-home systems with traditional security, but this disappeared with the emergence of BYOD and widespread broadband.

Can you share PrivX credentials?

So even when using shared accounts, the user cannot share any credentials to anyone else.

Can you restrict access to specific networks?

You can also restrict access to only to specific networks/target hosts when connecting from the PrivX GUI to websites. Login as self to web target is possible if the user provides own credentials for the web service. Again, optional session recording is possible. If needed, additional PrivX Extender component can be used to access Web targets (as well as SSH and RDP targets) in a private network or virtual private clouds (VPC).

What is VPN for remote work?

Organizations that utilize a Virtual Private Network (VPN) provide their remote employees a very similar experience to working in brick and mortar locations. A VPN allows an end-user to establish a direct connection between their PC and the corporate network through a firewall. VPNs provide the much needed extra layer of security to ensure continued business productivity during and after this period of disruption. While remote desktop services and applications might suffice for a small office with only a few remote connections, a VPN will be needed to properly secure a business that requires multiple remote connections.

Is it safe to climb Mount Everest without crampons?

The prospect of trusting employees to ensure security protocols on personal devices is like climbing Mount Everest without crampons; the intentions are sound but you will inevitably fail due to lack of foresight and proper equipment. Being prepared with the right equipment for a steep ascent will ensure you are secure during your climb up the proverbial cybersecurity mountain.

What is secure remote access?

Secure remote access prevents unauthorized access to your network when employees are working remotely. It helps protect sensitive company data from digital threats like phishing attacks and malware. Secure remote access encompasses multiple solutions including VPN, multifactor authentication, developing cybersecurity policies for remote work, and good security hygiene.

Why is secure remote access so important?

Secure remote access prevents unauthorized access to your network when employees are working remotely. It helps protect sensitive company data from digital threats like phishing attacks and malware. Secure remote access encompasses multiple solutions including VPN, multifactor authentication, developing cybersecurity policies for remote work, and good security hygiene.

How to secure remote workforce?

The only way to secure your remote workforce is a secure VPN. Employees must connect from their laptops, desktops and mobile devices over a VPN connection. It’s the secure, private method for virtually entering the corporate office, so to speak. In many cases, remote workforce technology requires hardware.

What is remote access?

Remote access provides end users with the ability to access resources on the corporate network from a distant location. The most common function of remote access is to enable employees who are traveling or telecommuting to connect to the company network and access resources such as internal applications, intranet, mail services and file sharing.

What is emerging model of remote access?

An emerging model of remote access provides the benefit of a tunnel for broad application support while retaining strong control over access to applications through the next-generation firewall security policy. This approach allows administrators to safely enable remote user activity and access on the network. Combining the benefits from earlier implementations, this model is the most secure and practical remote access solution available today.

What is site to site VPN?

A site-to-site VPN is a connection between two or more networks, such as a corporate network and a branch office network. Site-to-site VPNs are frequently used by companies with multiple offices in different geographic locations that need to access and use the corporate network on an ongoing basis.

Why is remote access important?

While providing that remote access is convenient for employees and often a productivity advantage, it requires the right measures to enable a secure remote workforce, support business continuity and protect your network because information security is a major concern.

Can you use a VPN to access on-premises resources?

If you need to enable access to on-premises resources using a cloud proxy VPN, an encrypted connection back to your premises is required to gain access to corporate resources – through the internet to the cloud provider – across a secure VPN. From the cloud provider, employees have access to corporate resources.

Is it possible to work from home?

Meanwhile, employees are growing accustomed to a more flexible work environment. In a short period, enterprises across every industry have figured out how to run near fully remote businesses, providing employees with all the resources they need to work from home. By and large, newly remote companies are realizing it’s possible to uphold a strong, healthy company culture that makes employees feel connected while working from home full time. Through a combination of video conferencing, emphasis on work life balance and collaboration among remote teams, the global perspective on remote work is undergoing a major change.