Remote-access Guide

securing remote access

by Kraig Lowe Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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Basic Security Tips for Remote Desktop
  1. Use strong passwords. ...
  2. Use Two-factor authentication. ...
  3. Update your software. ...
  4. Restrict access using firewalls. ...
  5. Enable Network Level Authentication. ...
  6. Limit users who can log in using Remote Desktop. ...
  7. Set an account lockout policy.

Full Answer

What is secure remote access?

- Definition | VMware Glossary Secure remote access is a combination of security processes or solutions that are designed to prevent unauthorized access to an organization’s digital assets Skip to Main Content

How to protect your network from remote access?

So, you have a three-layer line of defense working to protect remote access to your network: anti-virus, firewall, and VPN. The network security team should monitor alerts from these defenses constantly. Adopting two-factor authentication for remote access through VPN further boosts your network security.

What are the best practices for securing remote access?

Best Practices for Securing Remote Access. RAS: The most basic form of VPN remote access is through a RAS. This type of VPN connection is also referred to as a Virtual Private Dial-up Network ... IPSec: IPSec is an IP packet authentication and encryption method. It uses cryptographic keys to protect ...

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.

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Which method of remote access is the most secure?

Implement a Secure Connection for Remote Network AccessWired Connection: A wired connection is the most secure method for remote network access.Home Wi-Fi: The second most secure network connection is using a secured home Wi-Fi connection.More items...•

How do I protect my remote worker?

Here are the top remote working security tips to ensure you and your staff are working from home safely.Use antivirus and internet security software at home. ... Keep family members away from work devices. ... Invest in a sliding webcam cover. ... Use a VPN. ... Use a centralized storage solution. ... Secure your home Wi-Fi.More items...

What are the most common remote work security risks?

Top Security Risks of Remote WorkingGDPR and remote working. Remote work means an employer has less control and visibility over employees' data security. ... Phishing Emails. ... Weak Passwords. ... Unsecured Home Devices. ... Unencrypted File Sharing. ... Open Home WiFi Networks.

How do you protect and secure data while working remotely?

How to promote data security while working remotelyConnect to a hotspot or use a VPN. ... Use strong passwords and a password manager. ... Keep work and personal separate. ... Stay alert for phishing or other attacks. ... Participate in routine cybersecurity training.

What should a company consider when looking at adding remote employees?

These expectations should include work hours, availability, deadlines, meeting scheduling and attendance, work submission and more. When setting these requirements consider the differences between remote and in-house workers.

Which option creates a secure connection for remote workers?

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.

Which of the following actions are likely to increase security when you are working from home?

12 security tips for the 'work from home' enterpriseProvide employees with basic security knowledge. ... Provide your people with VPN access. ... Provision security protection. ... Run a password audit. ... Ensure that software is updated. ... Encourage the use of (secure, approved) cloud services. ... Reset default Wi-Fi router passwords.More items...•

What is the line of defense for remote access?

So, you have a three-layer line of defense working to protect remote access to your network: anti-virus, firewall, and VPN. The network security team should monitor alerts from these defenses constantly.

What is the first thing that’s required to ensure smooth remote access via a VPN?

The first thing that’s required to ensure smooth remote access via a VPN is to plan out a comprehensive network security policy.

Why is IPSEC used?

This allows IPSec to protect data transmission in a variety of ways. IPSec is used to connect a remote user to an entire network. This gives the user access to all IP based applications. The VPN gateway is located at the perimeter of the network, and the firewall too is setup right at the gateway.

What are the implications of IPSec connections for corporations?

What are the implications of IPSec connections for corporations, considering the very nature of this connection? Well, your employee will only be able to access the network from a single, authorized device. Security is further boosted by the enforcement of antivirus and firewall policies.

What is IPSEC encryption?

IPSec is an IP packet authentication and encryption method. It uses cryptographic keys to protect data flows between hosts and security gateways.

Why use two factor authentication for VPN?

Adopting two-factor authentication for remote access through VPN further boosts your network security. Now let’s take a look at why you should choose a particular VPN type as a secure connection methodology instead of the alternatives.

What is remote access VPN?

The most basic form of VPN remote access is through a RAS. This type of VPN connection is also referred to as a Virtual Private Dial-up Network (VPDN) due to its early adoption on dial-up internet.

What is remote access?

Remote PC access methods, such as desktop sharing, connect a remote computer to the host computer from a secondary location outside of the office. This setup means the operator has the ability to access local files on the host computer as if they were physically present in the office.

How to secure work online?

Your options are using either remote computer access, virtual private networks, or direct application access. Each method has its benefits and drawbacks. Choose the method that works best for your organization.

How to protect data with passwords?

To enact one-time-use credentials, create a log of passwords in a spreadsheet acting as a “safe.” When you a single-use password for business reasons, have the user label the password in the spreadsheet as “checked out.” Upon completion of the task, have the user check-in the password again and retire it.

Why is encryption important?

As important as it is to choose an access method for your online workers , it’s equally important those methods use encryption to secure remote employees’ data and connections. Simply put, encryption is the process of converting data into code or ciphertext.

Why do businesses need to have a cybersecurity policy?

If your business allows remote work, you must have a clear cybersecurity policy in place so that every employee’s access to company data is secure. Without a strategy in place, any employee can easily become an entry-point for a hacker to hijack your organization’s network.

Why use AES encryption?

As it stands, most businesses have the security protocol to use Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to secure data due to its compatibility with a wide variety of applications. It uses symmetric key encryption, meaning the receiver uses a key to decode the sender’s data. The benefit of its use over asymmetric encryption is it’s faster to use. Look for encryption software that uses AES to secure company data.

What happens when you use unsecured Wi-Fi?

When using unsecured Wi-Fi, your phone is exposed to potential hackers looking to compromise your device. To prevent any unwanted intrusions, only use encrypted software to communicate.

What is secure remote access?

Secure remote access describes the ability to securely access networks, devices, and applications from a “remote” location, which means “off the network.”

What is Zscaler private access?

Looking more closely, Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) service provides secure remote access to internal applications in the cloud without placing users on the corporate network. The cloud service requires no complex remote access VPN gateway appliances and uses cloud-hosted policies to authenticate access and route user traffic to the closest application location to them. ZPA is a true software-defined solution that can work in conjunction with direct access technology. It directly connects customer data centers with cloud service provider data centers.

Why are IPs never exposed to the internet?

IPs are never exposed to the internet, creating a “darknet” and making the network impossible to find. Apps segmentation ensures that once users are authorized, application access is granted on a one-to-one basis so that authorized users have access only to specific applications rather than full access to the network.

How does ZTNA improve security?

ZTNA improves your security posture by drastically reducing your attack surface. Application access is decoupled from network access. ZTNA moves away from network-centric security and instead focuses on securing the connection between user and application.

What is ZTNA security?

ZTNA takes a user-to-application approach rather than a network-centric approach to security . The network becomes deemphasized, and the internet becomes the new corporate network, leveraging end-to-end encrypted TLS micro-tunnels instead of MPLS.

Can IoT services be hosted on premises?

IoT services that are hosted on-premises can benefit from optimized speeds. Performance speeds can increase if local users do not have to connect out to the internet to access apps that are hosted on-premises. The other option is ZTNA as a service, such as Zscaler Private Access.

Can a VPN attack be zero trust?

They can (and do) exploit the VPN attack surface to infiltrate the network, deliver malware such as ransomware, launch denial-of-service attacks, and exfiltrate critical business data. In contrast, the zero trust approach treats all traffic, including traffic already inside the perimeter, as hostile.

Secure Remote Access for Employees and Vendors

Traditional remote access methods, such as RDP, Virtual Private Networks, and legacy remote desktop tools lack granular access management controls. These processes enable easy exploits via stolen credentials and session hijacking. Extending remote access to your vendors makes matters even worse.

Privileged Remote Access: Use Cases

BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access controls, manages, and audits remote privileged access to critical IT systems by authorized employees and third-party vendors. No VPN required.

Remote Support: Use Cases

BeyondTrust Remote Support allows help desk teams to securely access and fix any remote device on any platform, located anywhere in the world. All with the same solution.

Secure Remote Access and Remote Support Features

BeyondTrust Remote Support and Privileged Remote Access solutions work hand-in-hand to secure remote access points within the enterprise, including employees, vendors, third-parties, and more.

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.

What is secure remote access?

What it means to provide secure remote access has changed considerably in the past few years as a result of new technologies and the pandemic. At its most basic, secure remote access is having location-agnostic connectivity among enterprise users and centralized applications, resources and systems, whether cloud-based or on premises.

Who is responsible for secure remote access?

Although remote access tools, such as VPNs and firewalls, are typically under the purview of network teams, in this new era, cybersecurity teams tend to lead and manage the policies, processes and technologies associated with ensuring secure remote access.

The diminishing power of VPNs

One tactic organizations use to combat the vulnerabilities associated with working remotely -- especially if employees are using consumer-grade systems -- is to reestablish VPN standards. This entails enforcing basic protections, such as strong passwords, multifactor authentication, role-based access and encryption.

Setting secure remote access policies

A hallmark of secure remote access is the underlying policy that safeguards access to and the use of enterprise resources, such as data, databases, systems and networks.

Components of the secure remote access ecosystem

Secure remote access touches just about every aspect of enterprise security. TechTarget has curated a series of guides to help IT and security professionals get up to speed on important technologies and concepts.

Zero trust and secure remote access

Cybersecurity and IT teams realize words like perimeter and trust are quickly becoming outdated as borders dissolve and the base of users that need access to resources expands. No longer are organizations protected by four castle walls, with a firewall moat keeping miscreants out.

SASE and secure remote access

Secure Access Service Edge is an emerging concept that combines network and security functions into a single cloud service, not only to alleviate traffic from being routed through the data center, but also to embrace a remote workforce, IoT adoption and cloud-based application use.

Threats to remote access

Remote access comes with a security cost. Allowing users to access local resources from a remote location makes it very difficult to detect when an attacker is attempting to access through the same channel.

What to look for in a user authentication solution for remote access?

Server performance monitoring solutions are designed to measure and log the activity of users on company servers and desktops. Broadly speaking, there are two types of monitoring solutions. Agent-based platforms require a software program to be installed on each computer to be monitored.

Secret Double Octopus Remote Access Authentication Solution

With a combined experience of over 100 years in the cybersecurity industry, our staff shares their knowledge and vision.

What does it mean when a remote access application configuration only requires the user to enter a username and password?

If a remote access application configuration only requires the user to enter a username and password, the application has been configured insecurely.

How many failed login attempts can you lock out?

Limit login attempts. Set your remote access to lock out a user after six failed login attempts, with administrators able to unlock accounts.

Why is multifactor authentication important?

Because of the prevalence of high-quality password-cracking tools, creative usernames and complex passwords are essential, but not enough. Strong multi-factor authentication must also be implemented to ensure a safer remote access atmosphere.

What does it mean when an attacker sees an IP address with ports 5800 and 5900?

Attackers will routinely scan large ranges of IP addresses looking for open ports that typically relate to the use of remote access tools (i.e., if attackers see that an IP address has ports 5800 and 5900 open, they assume that Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is installed. If they see that ports 5631 and 5632 are open, they assume the system is configured for pcAnywhere).

How to identify suspicious activity alerts?

Store and monitor logs. Monitoring log activity can help identify suspicious activity alerts, such as if someone tried logging in at 3 a.m. over 300 times.

Is remote access a good technology?

While remote computer access is a convenient and important technology, it’s unfortunately also one of the most hacked business resources in recent years.

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