The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released an official statement saying we should all do more to prepare for a possible Coronavirus pandemic. The WHO also noted that all countries should have “a phase of preparedness.” Of course, this means taking precautions when in public areas. But as a business, we must consider preparations for our working environment to deal with any potential disruption.
Would you be prepared if the government released an official statement saying, “all employees must work remotely to avoid spreading the outbreak”?
Rapidly transitioning to remote working in a crisis would be chaotic. Teams will likely be focused on enabling remote working without considering security implications. So, it is important to build security into the heart of the conversation and solution. When remote workers operate from home, do they have the same security as in the office? Do the most likely attack vectors (email, web and endpoint) have the same security remotely as in the office?
DON’T ALLOW THE CORONAVIRUS TO BRING OTHER VIRUSES INTO YOUR NETWORK!
This isn’t the only threat to consider—other forms of disruption, such as flooding or snow, can test your business’s ability to enable remote working quickly and securely.
This includes all the critical communication needed to be part of this virtual team, such as phone, email, messaging and other tools. It would also include access to business applications, cloud-delivered services, and remote network access where needed.
The most critical vectors are web security, email security and endpoint protection. Do these continue to protect employees remotely? Cloud-delivered solutions are key to extending security to wherever your employees need to work.
In many cases, we design the ability to work remotely, but does this operate for an extended period, such as a full week? Being prepared means putting these actions in place before disaster hits. This means you’ll have time to test that it works as required.
Remember: Without security that is delivered via the cloud, you risk your business being compromised. Without ensuring secure remote working, your employees won't have the resources they need.
The first step is identifying the services you need to allow remote working.
An effective solution for this is Microsoft 365. With Microsoft 365, you can work anywhere, collaborate with colleagues, reduce capital spending, and more, so it provides advanced security features.
The cloud is a beneficial way of ensuring your data is kept secure when working with remote teams. It’s much more difficult for cyber attackers to break into the cloud, making it less likely that your workforce will lose any of their or the organisation’s sensitive data. To prevent viruses, ransomware attacks, and your network from being compromised, web and email filtering is needed wherever your employees are. Leading cloud-based security technologies like Zscaler or SentinelOne allow you to take security wherever your employees go.
It’s simple but important for securing your business data. Strong passwords and an effective password policy are an essential foundation for security.
Public Wi-Fi is relatively easy for attackers to break into. It’s one of the primary ways hackers gain access to sensitive information. You should use a corporate VPN or a cloud-based solution (e.g. Zscaler’s Cloud Security platform), which delivers a cloud-based security stack to maintain security wherever you connect from - across public Wi-Fi, in the airport, cafe or at home. Don’t use public Wi-Fi for sensitive, business-critical activities. Finishing a presentation or amending a document is understandable, as long as nothing is worked on, opened or logged into, including any data you need to keep secure.
Training your employees can help you maintain data security with remote teams. You should regularly inform your teams of important security protocols and common hacker strategies, such as how to spot phishing emails. A study by Cisco showed that 70% of data breaches in organisations stemmed from employees doing or accessing something they shouldn’t have. The employees weren’t doing this maliciously; it was through a lack of knowledge.
Security does not rely on one single solution. It requires a multi-faceted approach, as any single solution is open to vulnerabilities. Having a series of fail-safes is essential. Operating 24x7x365, CyberOne's state-of-the-art Network & Security Operations Centre (NOC/SOC) helps many of the UK’s leading organisations remain ‘Always On’, Always Secure’. Why not take the first step and talk to one of our network or security experts about the steps to secure your remote workers?