Remote Work Adds Security Risk To Your Network That Needs To Be Addressed

The global pandemic completely upended business-as-usual at most companies. Employees were forced to embrace a remote-hybrid organizational culture, while IT teams struggled to secure digital operations across borderless networks. In many ways, remote work is significantly less secure than on-premise work because employees often use personal devices and an unsecured network.

The rise of remote work has reinforced the need for firms to continuously educate their staff on cybersecurity best practices. Without the same oversight into what configurations, devices, and platforms individual colleagues are using, many organizations are significantly more exposed to cybercrime than ever before. 

To secure your organization’s remote work ecosystem, it’s necessary to implement best network security practices for connecting teams across borderless networks.  

Bring Unapproved Applications to Light

Staying connected and being able to communicate seamlessly is essential for success in the modern remote-hybrid organizational culture. IT teams will likely want to test and try out different digital solutions and strategies to determine what works best for their divisions. 

One strategy is to put in place a process for users to easily and conveniently communicate with the IT team when it comes to their personal devices and software. The IT team is situated as the enabler, allowing them to implement configurations and security best practices to ensure better security outcomes. This helps make remote work safe for both the end user and the business. 

Other solutions and strategies include rolling out:

• Authentication, education, and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies
• Data loss prevention protocols 
• A culture of cyber resilience and hygiene 
• An industry-leading Managed eXtended Detection & Response solution

Authentication, Education, and BYOD

Authentication and access of approved users are critical for the security of borderless networks. Privileged access requires monitoring and a system in place to ensure employees (or ex-employees) who lose the authority to access the network have their credentials removed in a timely fashion. 

Advanced processes such as the application of multi-factor authentication, conditional access, CASB, and strong password hygiene practices are also critical to ensure your team does everything it can to protect against losses. Developing a robust security culture is key to protecting against the most severe threats to data loss. 

Lastly, develop bring your own device (BYOD) policies and ensure that staff has adequate training on how to conduct themselves in a remote hybrid organizational environment regarding cybersecurity.

Ebook - What IT Leaders Must Know About Cybersecurity

Develop Data Loss Prevention Protocols

Depending on the industry your organization operates in, you may have a vested interest in utilizing data loss prevention protocols to secure your corporate intellectual property and any documents that may be necessary for personal, legal, or compliance purposes. 

Your organization must establish best practices for handling intellectual property and personal legal data about customers, employees, and suppliers. Embrace solutions that will provide the endpoint detection necessary to know if data exfiltration efforts are underway. 

You also need to monitor network traffic in real-time and have automated containment solutions in place in case data loss events occur. This prevents a single and isolated event from exploding out of control.

Build a Culture of Cyber Resilience and Hygiene

Your organization is only as strong as your weakest links. That is why it is crucial to develop new strategies for training remote workers about cybersecurity best practices and building a culture of accountability. 

From a C-suite perspective, topics of cybersecurity are often addressed from the lens of mitigating risks. When you incorporate cloud-based storage and borderless networks, you expose your business to some pretty serious risks (see: What CEOs Need to Know About Cyber Risks and How to Protect Their Business). 

Cybercrime is increasing daily. Your executive leaders need to realize the value of cyber- security and the immense benefit of developing robust security practices through ongoing employee training initiatives. 

Implement Advanced Cybersecurity via a Managed eXtended Detection & Response Solution

Securus360 extends the reach of your IT team by providing a cloud based, AI-powered Managed eXtended Detection & Response service. This ensures your organization can protect itself against all manner of new and evolving cyber attacks including hard to detect insider threats by preventing lateral movements, which allow minor breaches to fester and grow into reputation destroying data leaks. 

Securus360’s advanced threat detection processes take notice of anomalous user behaviors by monitoring endpoints, servers, security devices and cloud instances, ensuring that any unusual data exfiltration attempts are stopped dead in their tracks. 

Learn where your cybersecurity blindspots are so you can guard against them. Take a security threat assessment today.