The coronavirus pandemic has created a new reality , defining how companies operate, dictating their next steps, and eliminating barriers to physical safety and work. A study by Global Workplace Analytics in the United States identified that having employees working from home during the pandemic saved American employers more than $30 billion per day. In comparison, that's the net profit of the giant Apple for the entire last year.
Also in the United States, the study predicted that 25 to 30% of workers are working from home, and will remain so at least until 2021. This presents numerous challenges for IT security teams.
In Brazil, working outside the office, or home office , is also a reality that many companies have adopted as a measure to protect employees at this time, and which could affect 20 million Brazilians, according to research from the Institute for Applied Economic Research ( Ipea ). This means that one in five formal workers , on average, in the country, may remain at home when the public health crisis passes.
Habitual behavior
Typically, organizations assume that most employees are directly connected to the corporate LAN, collecting data through event logs from servers and workstations. However, with many employees located outside the network perimeter, using mobile devices or working from remote home environments, organizations have lost visibility into a significant percentage of business network traffic.
This scenario is highly attractive and offers great opportunities to leverage the actions of cybercriminals, who have recently increased their efforts in an attempt to break through the security barriers weakened by the situation.
With so much information at stake, it's important to establish ways to monitor the security of remote work in the "new normal," where physical connections and relationships are disappearing.
Next, we will list some tips for adapting your company to this new reality.
1. Expand the boundaries of the local network.
With a large portion of the team working from home, many organizations have been forced to choose between network usability and security. Conventional virtual private network ( VPN ) infrastructure was not designed to offer a solution for both factors.
The adoption of VPNs has been strongly recommended as a solution to remote access and security problems; in fact, we discussed the advantages of the tool in an article productivity control and does not control access outside the scope of work by teams.
With unmonitored connections, the equipment of a remote work team can be compromised by malware and a host of other problems. In this way, these devices can be used as a springboard to access the corporate environment, including through its VPN connection.
Beyond safety and productivity, there are numerous factors that can disrupt a company's natural workflow. We've listed some tools to help your office continue functioning "normally" amidst the pandemic.
2. Safety at the extremities
The limits of the local network have been expanded with the team working from home. Therefore, the company's security and productivity also require expansion across all devices. Companies need to maintain at least the same level of control and security as when activities were performed within the corporate environment.
By deploying cloud-based control and security on company-owned devices used by remote workers, the organization can detect all unauthorized access, points of vulnerability, and, most importantly, prevent infection by malware, viruses, ransomware, and other threats.
In addition to security, a control tool can improve the productivity of teams working from home by easily monitoring and managing access dynamically, making the remote work experience as similar as possible to the reality before the pandemic.
3. Guarantee the privacy of employees working from home.
Monitoring access and maintaining the security of employees working from home can be a problem for many organizations, considering employee privacy. From the organization's perspective, it is their duty to demand the ability to protect confidential data used by employees for their daily work. From the employees' perspective, implementing a home network monitoring solution presents significant privacy concerns.
The solution to this, as we mentioned earlier, is a cloud-based control and security system that provides a viable solution to both problems. For corporate-owned devices, the company's security policy and rules must be clearly and explicitly understood, allowing the organization to monitor activity on company devices.
With the solution installed on these devices, the organization can then exercise its rights and rules without inappropriately monitoring the network activity of employees on personal devices connected to the same home network. In short, company control will only be exercised on the specific device that is remotely connected to the company's local network during working hours.
A good example of a tool for security in remote work is Lumiun's Business VPN . A major advantage of Lumiun's Business VPN compared to other corporate VPN solutions is that it applies the same internet access protection and monitoring rules to employees working remotely from home as exist on the company's internal network. This maintains the internet usage policy , aiming to improve information security and employee productivity.
Furthermore, it is a Brazilian solution, with 100% support in Portuguese and accepts payments in the local currency (BRL).
4. Monitor personal devices
For personal devices used for remote work, the line between privacy and security is thin. Because the equipment belongs to the employee, it may seem more difficult to enforce rules and controls for access and security.
Therefore, all organizations should develop and document a policy to ensure that the use of personally owned devices complies with the company's needs.
access control tool does not raise any privacy concerns for employees working from home. Furthermore, it keeps company data secure even when using a device that does not belong to the company.
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