Remote working and cybersecurity threats go side by side. Since the pandemic, many companies have decided to implement work from home rules in their firms. And because of that, data security issues have been on the rise and cybersecurity for remote workers has become quite a challenge for many firms and organizations.
At the moment, you will find that many organizations are employing technological solutions to deal with such challenges. However, there are still many new organizations that are struggling and suffering due to feeble data protection.
Nowadays, malicious parties and competitors have grown their tech knowledge. And if you want to protect your firm against them, not only you but your workforce needs to be prepared as well.
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Cybersecurity For Remote Workers Challenges –
Let’s first understand the fact that remote working is the biggest reason why companies are opting for monitoring technologies in their firms. The basic requirement of remote work is the Internet. And while working with IoT, there are max opportunities to meet unexpected security threats to your business data.
When employees are working from the office, you can still protect against such breaches by monitoring the data transfer between the inter-network of your firm. However, you can’t do the same when employees are working remotely from their homes. It’s possible that their network may not be secure enough and easily attacked by competitors.
For suppose, if you are outside in a local cafe, using the WIFI from an unsecured public network, there would be quite a risk of cyber attack. However, these kinds of problems can be dealt with if you and your employees are aware of potential threats in your surroundings.
These are some of the steps that you may consider to make your remote team more secure against cyber-threats.
Use Dynamic Authentication-
The incidents of stolen creds in cyber-attacks are getting quite frequent. Even in an office space with a highly secure network, you can’t be sure about insiders sneaking on your computer behind your back. And now, due to remote work, it has become even easier for such people to get their hands on your important data.
To overcome this problem nowadays, professionals use multi-factor or two-way authentication to enhance security. In this method, we can make use of authentication tools to protect our creds or data from getting stolen. It also has an alert-based mechanism, which notifies you when an unknown device is detected to access or login to the creds.
Thereby, you must ensure that your company’s important data should be handled appropriately using dynamic authentication. That way, you and your team will be protected against any cybersecurity threats.
Regular Updates Installation-
Another important thing that people often ignore is updating their software and tools on a regular basis. Timely updates are necessary because they ensure to fill the security patches in the system and safeguard against any flaws or threats that may arise and cause a data breach. So if you are getting notifications to update your software, you must check on them and update them. Not only yourself, but we highly recommend you to encourage your remote working staff to update their software or set them in auto-update mode. That way, you can ensure that they would not have any data loss or other complications due to delayed software updates.
Cybersecurity for remote workers
Role-Based Access Control-
Role-based access control (RBAC) means that you are allowing data access based on the role and department section of an employee. If you are managing the segmentation of your team to decide the data access based on their job role, the transfer of information will be smoother. And this will also help to improve the overall productivity of the team as well. Nowadays, in most organizations, the IT team follows such a structure to avoid mismanagement of data.
Use Virtual Private Network-
With remote working, VPN seems to be the best solution to prevent cyber-attacks under an unsecured network. Even if you are using a public Internet connection for your work in a restaurant or hotel, using the VPN, you can ensure that no one can snoop on your device’s data without your permission. One more good thing about VPN is that it can hide your IP location as well so that no hackers or agents can crack your information. Though using VPN has its downsides. It slows down the Internet connectivity reducing the bandwidth, which makes it even difficult for the user to telecommute with others. But there are also some VPN tools out there that allow better bandwidth to have good internet speed.
Monitor User Activities-
Even with all the planning and preparation, there are still some chances that employees may fall for the phishing trap. Or there might be even a chance of having negligent employees or insiders in your firm that may leak out business data to competitors. Especially when companies allow their employees to work remotely, vulnerability to data threats is always there.
Finally, to overcome this issue, we have the UAM (user activity monitoring) solution, which allows the employer to track the computer activities of employees. UAM software has features that automatically inform about the improper attempt to access or misuse business data from the employee’s end. You can use UAM software to detect unwanted exfiltration of data, insider threats and also search for incompetent employees. Especially during the investigations, UAM software can be quite helpful in collecting the evidence and finding the real culprit behind the scene.
EmpMonitor is one of the best user activity monitoring software that allows you to track down the real-time activities of your remote working employees. Along with user activity monitoring, it has many other features as well, which help employers to keep track of productivity in their firm. Considering the cybersecurity for remote workers, EmpMonitor could be the best solution for achieving compliance and better workforce management. Many organizations have already implemented EmpMonitor to ensure robust data security of their business data. What’s your take?
Encrypt Server Communication-
With a remote work policy, employers do not really have control over the connection that remote employees may use. Though the internal communication between the team members can still be protected using the encrypted server. Nowadays, companies use Transport Layer Security on their web apps and communications systems to protect against any trespass. The encrypted service system provides you with enhanced data security in your communication. It helps to protect business data and also helps employers to improve connectivity within their teams. So it’s beneficial on both ends.
Educate Employees About Cybersecurity-
Even after taking all the counter-measures, you simply can’t be sure to protect against cyber-threats. And that is because nowadays, malicious fraudsters have also equipped with technologies. They can explore many more ways to harm the business data. In such a case, what you need is trained employees who are aware of such issues and accordingly take preventive steps. Also, we have seen that large enterprises often spend a lot on the training of their employees to enhance their knowledge and skill sets. It not only makes them aware of the cybersecurity challenges but also makes them more productive as remote workers.
Conclusion
In today’s world, remote working options have become the need for the industries. But the issues about cybersecurity with remote work are also becoming quite a threat. Based on a recent report 76% of employees accepted that because of remote work the line between their personal and professional lives has been blurred. This year we often also heard about data thefts and security breaches due to unsecured networks during work from home.
But with all such problems, there are also companies who are doing well utilizing advanced tech solutions to improve the standard and work quality in their organization. Using the best UAM solution like EmpMonitor can really help you to boost cybersecurity for remote workers in your team.
So what are your thoughts? Please mention them in the comments section.
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