Five Ways To Secure A Work-From-Anywhere Environment

According to Statista, business spending for identity management systems will reach $13.92 billion by the end of 2021. This is an organizational process that ensures individuals have appropriate access to tools and resources to do their jobs. It associates user rights and restrictions with established identities. This way, only authenticated users can access specific data and applications within your organization. Hence, many businesses consider identity management an essential tool for security.

In this article, we look at five key things to do to ensure compliance and security as workforces begin to return to the office, but with the assumption that some level of remote work is here to stay.

Evaluate your compliance and security systems  

Compliance is a key component to any cybersecurity program. However, due to the complex nature of laws and industry regulations, ensuring compliance is often complicated for organizations. Many organizations implemented radical measures when suddenly faced with the fait accompli of a remote workforce. Now these platforms – notably in messaging, video-conferencing, collaboration, remote support and data storage – need to be re-evaluated with regard to compliance, data confidentiality and security principles such as integrity and availability. The purpose of compliance monitoring is to ensure your organization is meeting various standards and regulations on an ongoing basis. It can also help identify any regulatory gaps within your cybersecurity controls and inform the changes you can make to your cybersecurity framework to maintain adherence with applicable regulations better.

Be aware of security at all times

Companies of all sizes are under attack. Meanwhile, remote work has become a necessity for modern organizations looking to recruit talent and create business continuity plans. When employees were overwhelmingly office-based, it was possible to remind them constantly of the importance of security by means of visual forms of communication around the workplace. To continue that in a situation of hybrid working, these reminders need to be transmitted virtually into the homes of remote workers. Whether you are new to the remote work landscape or are an early adopter, it is here to stay! Get ahead of the information security curve and empower your employees working from home with the tools and training they need to safeguard your business’ reputation and confidential data.

Extend the risk perimeter  

With many employees choosing to work from home permanently and only occasionally come into the office, their home becomes part of the risk perimeter for the organization. Many employees will need to learn a new kind of cyber hygiene. Remote workers may be using devices, such as home desktops or family tablets, which do not measure up to enterprise security standards, so companies will need to educate their remote workforce on how to mitigate security risks in this new reality. Employees must have a solid knowledge of the threats that face them -- from phishing attacks to the threat actors targeting them -- and what they can do to protect themselves. Also, consider making a virtual background mandatory for employees on video-conference calls so that third parties can’t see the homes of staff members and potential ways in. You can also help your workforce to separate their networks so that domestic appliances live on a distinct sub-network to that of their professional hardware. Try to see the homes of employees as an extension of the enterprise network.

Establish uniform policies for employees at home and in the office  

When working between the office and employees’ homes, the physical security perimeter no longer exists. So, staff members on-site must be afforded similar – zero – levels of confidence similarly to those in the remote workforce, in terms of security. That means that a VPN, if deployed, must always be used across all locations. Access to IT and business resources - data, databases, systems and networks - must be protected from unauthorized and potentially damaging attacks. Securing access to company resources from employees working remotely ensures IT assets and employees are shielded from potential disruptions. Cybersecurity measures that help protect data, systems, network configuration data, databases and other information resources are essential elements of data protection initiatives.

Backup, backup again and test it regularly  

You really have to make sure that data generated by remote workers and those on-site is backed up – and, critically, that backups are tested regularly. That includes data resident on staff portable hardware, as well as data stored in the cloud. The key lies in selecting the right backup tools for your business and implementing them before anything goes wrong. That way you'll know you've taken measures to aid recovery, should you need them. Remote workers have some specific data recovery needs. In the worst case they'll be disconnected from your other business systems completely - meaning they can't restore their computer using files stored on your network, and meaning support staff can't connect to the computer to reload key files. To deal with this scenario, you need to combine local and remote disaster recovery systems.

No matter which combination of backup methods your choose, it's important to bear these key points in mind:

• Think about where you'll keep your backups. It's usually best to keep duplicate backups in two different places. One can be local, like on a disk image on your computer's hard drive. That allows for a fast recovery. The other should be remote, like a server, external backup or cloud hosting service.

• Document your backup policy. Make sure it's clear who is responsible for looking after backups and how your company should react in the event of a problem.

• Educate your remote workers. If you're going to give your staff the ability to restore their computer in the event of problems, it's vital they understand the importance of backups, where to store files so they get backed up properly - and what to do in the event of a problem.

• Test your backups regularly. Once you've established a backup process, it's easy to leave them running in the background without checking if they're working properly. But the last thing you need is for them to fail when you need them most!