Is Your Fully Remote Staff Too Much for Your Internal IT Department?

While the upward trend of remote work has generally proven very beneficial for many businesses, it is important to note that these businesses generally came correct in terms of their preparations… or at least had the resources required to make it work. Your internal IT department might still be overwhelmed (or at least at capacity) when it comes to supporting users who are working remotely—they might not be able to focus enough hours on ensuring everything is being done securely.
Let’s explore how your remote employees need to handle their security to prevent your business from suffering some consequences.
So, What Does Cybersecurity Look Like for Remote Workforces?
There are multiple aspects that a remote worker needs to have covered in order to remain secure as they productively work from outside the office. These include:
Remote Access
Access to company data will be important for your team members to complete their duties, including your remote workers. Ensuring that your employees have the means to access the data and solutions they require will be critical to their—and by extension, your business’—success.
VPN Availability
On the topic of remote access, you want to make sure that your employees are able to securely communicate with your business’ network during their remote operations. Using a virtual private network allows you to shield your connection behind a layer of encryption, protecting data as it moves back and forth between the network and the employee’s workstation.
On top of that, making sure every employee is using the VPN and that data is being stored and saved properly is paramount. A staff email isn’t the solution for this issue; less technically-savvy employees should get guidance from IT to ensure they are following best practices. Here are three ways a VPN can benefit your business.
Native Security
Every workstation in use should also have an assortment of security precautions and protections in place as it is used for remote work, as this will help to minimize the downtime that your remote users could potentially experience. Keeping firewalls and antivirus software installed and up-to-date on these workstations is crucial. With remote workforces, many businesses are adding personal workstations into the mix. That’s okay, provided that every other solution is designed for secure remote access.
Phishing Training and Other Awareness
Whether in or out of the office, all of your team members need to be on their A-game where their threat preparedness and awareness are concerned. Threats of all kinds, particularly phishing attacks, will still be targeting your remote workers. This makes it critical that your team members are up to speed on how to spot these threats and the procedures for reporting them.
Strong Passwords with Good Hygiene
Passwords are still one of the most important elements to your security, whether in the office or working remotely. You need to ensure that your team members are using sufficiently secure passwords, upholding all the best practices that they should and only using each password in one instance.
Access Policies
Finally, you need to ensure that each of your employees knows what they have to do in order to acceptably access your network. Limiting what certain users can access based on the needs that their role in the business will dictate they have is an effective way to limit the danger that any one user can contribute.
A Zero-Trust Approach is Your Best Bet
Whenever your business’ security is involved (but particularly when remote work is factored into the equation) a zero-trust approach is one of the most secure tactics you can embrace. Essentially, zero-trust means that everything attempting to associate with a network—internal or external—needs to be verified beforehand.
We are here to assist you in securing your business’ operations… even if they don’t take place in your place of business.
We’re not here to replace your existing IT personnel. In fact, we’re used to working with organizations with their own in-house IT departments who just need extra help with particular projects or technologies.
Give us a call at (250) 483-5623 to find out more.