Remote working is kinda normal now: your team likes it, you like it, you don’t need real estate, and productivity hasn’t dropped. Go you!
But a word of warning, homeslice. It might be time for you to double-check the IT security for your remote workers because you got a few extra risks now. So, let’s take a deep breath and a quick peek at some of the bigger data security risks to remote working and what you can do about them.
Risk 1: The Rise of Ransomware
During the pandemic, the frequency and severity of ransomware attacks rose, and this nastiness isn’t going away anytime soon. Ransomware comes in two bold flavors, and both taste like boils. It only takes one of your team to click on a ostensibly authentic-looking website and bang, you’re locked out of your entire system (locker ransomware) or your files (crypto-ransomware).
Risk 2: BYOD
In the Before Times, at the end of the workday, your team powered down their beastly desktop computers that sat like brick vaults on their office desks. Now, your team takes your data beyond the safe walls of your office onto their own laptops, tablets, and smartphones. This means a whole smorgasbord of vulnerabilities, including:
- Unclear safety expectations: How far can you force your people to be secure with their own devices?
- A free-for-all in terms of your team downloading weird apps potentially bursting with malware.
- Your team taking their device out for a fun day connected to unsecured wifi.
Yikes, right?
Risk 3: Cloud Stuff
The convenience of cloud-based computing opens new worlds and new risks. Scammers can access, steal, and disclose corporate data by hijacking accounts because of poor password management or password fatigue. Sometimes cybercriminals don’t even need sophisticated malware to access your network. They just get hold of a cloud-based email server and, through a socially-engineered phishing attack, ask your team to let them in. And many times, they do.
Risk 4: A Big Hole in Your Asset Lifecycle
Getting a working laptop to a new hire is no longer a matter of Chuckles from IT powering on a machine from the supply closet and running it to a freshly-supplied cubicle. That’s because Chuckles works from home, and cubicles are against the Geneva Convention. Or should be. Anyway, wherever your people do their work now, you’ll need a process to onboard, support, and offboard them. And, hey, where are those spares gonna go now? Spare devices washing about are a breach waiting to happen.
The Fine Art of De-Risking: IT Security for Remote Workers
Here’s a quick’n’dirty guide to three of our fave cybersecurity protocols you need to keep your remote workers – and your business – safe from cybercreeps.
Get Mobile Device Management (MDM)
We are big MDM fans over here. That’s because getting your entire fleet of endpoints corralled into one IT asset register means you’re blessed with control and knowledge of each one of those bad boys. You’re looking at standardizing security protocols, pushing OS updates, remote lock and wipe, and a whole candy box of security configurations that’ll get your fleet so tight it’ll whimper. BYOD? Yep, MDM does that too.
Get Cloud Single Sign-On (SSO)
Again with the cloud SSO. Wave your cloud SSO wand and you’ll create a super-strong single front door to all the cloud apps that your remote team love to mess with. Instead of forgetting a dozen different, hackable passwords, your team gets cool multi-factor authentication that gives them access to all their apps with just one simple process.
Get Device Warehousing (Laptop Logistics to the Rescue…)
End the loneliness and vulnerability of that spare device by finding somewhere safe and warm for it until it’s needed again. Spares management is the forgotten art that closes the final security gap in your IT asset’s lifecycle. It’s risk control that’ll keep your compliance people happy. You need to know where that spare device is and that it’s safe from falling into the wrong hands, much like some whacko government secret plan. Get a system for warehousing corporate-owned devices that are new or waiting to be re-loved. If you’re fully remote, you might not want to store your spares in your guest bedroom, but there are other options.
Is It Time to Glow up a Bit?
Now that remote working is the hot, new thing, there’s been a heckuva lot of new IT security glow-ups that you might not be aware of. And some of them will make your business even more beautiful…or at least less ugly. Give us a call and we’ll tell you all about them.
Ignition is Silicon Valley’s best (and friendliest) IT security, compliance, and support team. Contact us now – chatting about IT security for remote workers is our favorite thing to do!