Businesses from all scales of operations are always vulnerable to cyber threats. This threat becomes more dangerous if your business operates largely on remote working employees. Thus, cybersecurity for such remote workers becomes important.
According to an estimate, 43% of small businesses are scammed with these cyber threats. When working remotely, a certain level of security has to be arranged to avoid any kind of data compromise.
Hence, this write-up is directed towards the same intent, where you will get five interesting ways to lock down your remote team’s cybersecurity.
Keep reading to make your company operations safe.
1. Adopt a Zero Trust Approach
Imagine your business is a castle; your data is the royalty and treasure inside. Instead of letting anyone break inside as they please, you only grant access only to the people who need it. That too for particular reasons and for limited periods. And you watch them closely! That’s the essence of zero trust in a nutshell.
Practically, zero trust security means never trusting anyone or anything in the first place, that is trying to connect to your systems. It doesn’t matter if they are already “inside” your corporate network, sitting at a trusted device. Verify, validate, and then only grant the most limited access required for them to do their job (and revoke when done).
For example, make people log in with multi factor authentication before accessing business apps and files. Avoid letting them access whatever they want once logged into a device. Then, limit their access only to the specific data they need for their job. The person working in marketing? They can’t touch payroll info. The salesperson does not need engineering design files. Tightly limit the access by role, with no assumptions.
This way, companies can minimize the damage if an account is compromised or an endpoint is infected. It also forces good cyber hygiene practices around access and authentication.
While this may sound intense, this assumed breach mentality is actually where companies need to be in today’s world. Hackers nowadays have polished their skills, remote workspaces, and mobile devices we don’t fully control.
Companies can no longer fool themselves into thinking their corporate network perimeter is some magical barrier that helps to keep the bad folks out. Unfortunately, those days are long gone.
2. Issue Company Devices
Having your team use their own laptops, phones, tablets, and home networks for work introduces all sorts of cyber risks. Their home Wi-Fi is unlikely to be of the enterprise-grade. Also, they probably don’t use complex passwords on their personal devices, and who knows what potentially insecure apps and websites they visit. That’s why it’s really crucial to have employees use company-issued and managed devices as much as possible when working remotely.
Through the corporate devices, your IT and security teams can fully lock down everything from the hardware level up to the software stack. We’re talking endpoint antivirus tools, firewalls, disk encryption, and hardened operating systems with all the latest security patches.
The IT team can also quickly push updates, monitor compliance issues, remote wipe lost or stolen devices, and maintain visibility even if an employee leaves. This is so that the employee fails when trying to access sensitive data on their device. While it may seem invasive, all of these security capabilities are absolutely necessary when your team isn’t sitting safely behind the corporate firewall.
3. Establish Home Office Cyber Rules
Just because people aren’t in a corporate office doesn’t mean cybersecurity best practices are now of no use. Establish clear rules for working from home. For example:
Don’t use public Wi-Fi for anything work-related
Store all work files in approved cloud platforms like SharePoint or OneDrive
Encrypt locally stored work files
Use a VPN at all times
Don’t allow friends/family to access work devices
Also, advise employees on basic home network protections like updating default Wi-Fi passwords. Set the boundaries that these rules are mandatory when doing anything for work.
4. Train Employees on Secure Remote Work Practices
Your team may understand cyber risks in the office, but securing remote work is different. The employees must take command in their own hands, hence, train them on safe remote work practices like:
Not clicking suspicious links
Using strong passwords and a password manager
Recognizing social engineering attacks
Reporting devices suspected of compromise
Test them periodically with simulated phishing and social engineering attacks. Use any failures as teachable moments rather than reasons for embarrassment or punishment.
Work closely with department leaders to identify access gaps where additional cybersecurity training is needed based on actual employee behaviors.
5. Discourage Bring Your Own Apps
The viral spread of slick new productivity apps can expose your organization to unintended cyber risks. One employee must embrace a hot new file-sharing app with unimpressive or substandard security practices or privacy policies.
Prevent this by establishing an approved app catalog for remote work. Ensure remote access platforms and collaboration tools you select are subject to high-level security vetting. Discourage employees from using anything else for work purposes.
Also, a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) tool should be implemented to gain visibility into shadow IT usage and impose policies around what unsanctioned apps can access corporate data. The last thing you want is business files being synced with some random cloud storage service without your knowledge.
DID YOU KNOW? The risk of getting into a cybercrime is only going to rise in the upcoming years. So, work on your security infra and make your organization threat-proof.
Final Word
While embracing remote work provides many benefits, it creates new cyber risk exposures that can’t be ignored. Businesses must lock down their remote teams’ security through modern tools and common-sense best practices tailored for this unique world of work from home.
It may sound intimidating but don’t overthink it too much. You can cover a lot of ground by laying down a solid zero-trust foundation, hardening company, and employee devices, setting clear ground rules, boosting training, and discouraging ad hoc app usage. Look for a few quick wins, like enforcing MFA and banning public Wi-Fi, then tackle broader initiatives in phases. You don’t have to solve everything at once.
