Considerations When Securing a Remote Workforce

As today’s IT teams are scrambling to figure out the logistics of helping their coworkers be productive from their home offices, it’s important to remember that security can’t be an afterthought. Enabling employees to work remote has only broadened the landscape for attackers, giving them even more opportunity to find a way into your organization.

As OneNeck CISO, Katie McCullough put it, “Cybercriminals are opportunists, and they know it’s a confusing time for everybody, that people are looking for information through all means possible. They also know companies are having to react quickly and may have unintended consequences for the configurations they put in place. Our boundaries to our corporate networks are expanding with so much work from home. Now more than ever security must be front and center.”

So, what is an IT leader to do to keep your workforce safe, no matter where they might be sitting? I sat down Katie last week as she sat in her own home to get her perspective on some basic steps that will help keep the attackers at bay.

The impact the pandemic is having on IT security…

Question 1: In light of the current pandemic, what are you seeing as the impact it’s having on the security environment, and how is this being exploited by attackers?

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How to keep your workers and data safe during a time of crisis…

Question 2: They say many devices, many risks, and we’ve got a lot of people in the remote workforce these days. What recommendations would you have for IT leaders to keep their teams safe as they’re remote?

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Question 3: It’s a known fact that end users pose the greatest risk to today’s organization. What recommendations do you have to mitigate this risk with a remote workforce?

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Question 4: I’ve heard you say many times over the past several years that one of the most critical aspects of data security is a simple one – regular patching. How are customers dealing with patching during this time?

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Question 5: One of the Critical Security Controls we often reference is around privileged account access. I’d imagine this is a key consideration during this time?

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Question 6: The OneNeck workforce is no exception during this time, as we’re all working remote right now. However, we still have a lot of engineers out there in the field working around the clock to help customers adapt to a remote workforce. What kinds of security services can we currently offer our customers to help them with these remote workforce challenges?

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In Summary

Now more than ever, we want our customers to know we’re here to help. Whether you need help implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA), encrypted connections, help ensuring proper email configurations or web safeguards, or if the worst happens and you need help with incident response – we are here to help.

We may be working in isolation, but it’s people and interaction that powers business. And we’re here to help keep your remote workforce interactions safe.

Keep moving forward. We got your back.