As the COVID pandemic overpowers the healthcare systems across the world, businesses too are facing the biggest challenge ever. Organizations have been struggling to enable remote access for their employees because that is the only way they can operate right now. Things seem fairly settled now as most of the companies and workers have perfected the work-from-home recipe. The three main ingredients of the recipe are expanding existing access to data, creating alternate access methods for the remote workforce, and a complete infrastructure redesign. However, there are some bottlenecks and challenges as well, the biggest one being data security.
Without any doubt, cyber protection matters the most to any business and when teams are working from home, the protection of data, systems, and applications becomes all the more crucial. Now the big question would be whether your business and its data is secure enough. Or is there a need to reassess the security practices and implement some more measures to ensure that you are covered. Though this may take some work, the implementation of an effective strategy can actually serve extended benefits for long-term program objectives. Here are some steps that you can take to secure your remote workforce for now and the future.
Security awareness training
Perhaps, the most crucial aspect of cybersecurity in the current scenario is awareness training for your employees. Regardless of the degree of controls you implement, humans are still prone to making bad decisions, more so when they work from remote settings. Cybercriminals can use these errors to their advantage. So you must go the extra mile to create cybersecurity awareness and provide training, reminders, and tips to the employees in routine. Share with them a list of approved collaboration tools that can use for online meetings and remote chats. It also offers readily-accessible and detailed documentation on obtaining remote access.
Make secure file sharing a priority
Right now secure file sharing is a priority for organizations because most of them don’t have the company hardware resources that they can provide to employees for working from home. As a result, there is no option but to allow them to use their own devices while they work remotely. The best way to deal with the concern is by embracing a solution that lets you reap the many benefits of secure file sharing over the cloud. One that supports a variety of operating systems and employee devices would be ideal because they may want to access data via laptops and mobile devices.
Ensure identity and access management
While a secure file sharing solution has you covered to a considerable extent, you cannot undermine the significance of identity and access management when it comes to remote operations. Regardless of the methods, you implement to expand remote access, you must have a proper system for managing user identities. A single-sign-on the dashboard for the distribution of applications is the first thing you should have in place. Utilization of multifactor authentication is another smart move to make sure that only authorized users are able to access your files and applications. Continuous monitoring of access to confidential and sensitive information should be a part of your operations.
Go the extra mile to fortify endpoint security
Since the entire workforce will be working from remote locations, you cannot afford to go slack with endpoint security. Review and track the mobile asset inventories consistently and make sure that updated endpoint security is in place to curb the increased risk of malware. Implementing host validation checks is vital to ensure that a minimum standard is met before anyone can access the sensitive information of the business remotely. At the same time, there is a need to decide the level of access that you would be willing to permit for the BYOD users.
Stay one step ahead with a proactive
Right now, the major challenge for businesses is that cybercriminals and hackers are at large and are taking advantage of the situation. Remote workers are soft targets for phishing attacks, malware, and ransomware because a large proportion is still not comfortable with the concept of working remotely. Being proactive with your security measures is the only way you can stay one step ahead of the cybercriminals and save your employees and business from the threats they bring. The implementation of secure collaboration tools can make all the difference. Similarly, staying constantly in touch with the team and reinforcing the importance of security will make extra care. Despite the sudden leap that businesses had to take, most of them are doing well enough in the current situation. And if security is a concern that you are mainly struggling with, implementing these smart measures will resolve it to a significant extent.
