As you work from home to adapt to the new normal, you could be unaware of the threats posed to your home security.
At the office, the IT department ensures that corporate data is protected by correctly updating corporate devices. This is also done by setting up anti-malware software in their organization’s network and devices such as anti-spyware, antiviruses, and firewalls.
However, when you shift to remote work and use your personal devices and network, you can’t guarantee their safety because they are not under the management of the IT Team. This lack of protection increases the risks of being attacked.
When you leave your devices unmanaged, they become vulnerable to hacker infiltration and corruption by malware. In effect, when you try to access the corporate network through VPN with your devices in this state, it’s as if you’ve turned them into Trojan horses. Neglecting your home security can make your devices carriers of malware that may eventually result in a corporate nightmare.
According to a survey led by Malwarebytes, a cybersecurity firm, remote workers inadvertently expose 20% of their organizations to security breaches. As a consequence, their organizations literally had to pay the price for the damage caused by malware infections and security breaches.
You can prevent this from happening by identifying remote access risks and learning how to simplify your home security.
5 Remote Access Risks You Need to Know
Keep your organization’s network safe by knowing the top five remote access risks you must prevent:
1. Weak Remote Access Policies
You may unknowingly make your network more susceptible to hacking by connecting to an unsecured Wi-Fi network, visiting harmful sites, or downloading dangerous software. Plenty of legacy firewall rules permit entry to most areas of the VPN, making your network more accessible to attackers.
No matter how secure your Virtual Private Network (VPN) is, you have to be careful of sudden cyberattacks. For your company, it’s safer to base access on user identity. Only grant certain groups limited access depending on what the job requires. More access can be given when needed.
Use network segmentation and layer 7 control to lessen the movement of an attacker. You should also patch internal servers and clients, as well as take advantage of advanced threat prevention capabilities, and use an antivirus to counter infiltration.
2. A Deluge of New Devices to Protect
Since the workforce has shifted from being on-site to remote, it has become a challenge for security teams of organizations to determine which devices they must protect. While there are organizations that let their employees bring their work devices home, others are permitted to use their personal devices for business purposes.
For this reason, security teams must be able to install, manage, and support security products even while the users are at home.
Begin by expanding endpoint security to remote employees. You have to broaden both the detection and response capacity along with the endpoint security.
Decide which endpoint and network solutions apply to your geographically distributed workforce. Choose solutions that counter fileless attacks, malware, exploits. They must not only prevent these threats but be able to notice suspicious behavior.
Only allow trusted devices to connect to the corporate network.
3. Lack of Visibility into Remote User Activity
Security teams have trouble keeping track of remote endpoint devices for malware and other cyberthreats because they cannot see the remote user’s activity and traffic inside the network. As a result, it makes it harder for them to check if there are threats from remote users or see if an attacker who can transfer to the hosts of the network has penetrated a user’s device.
Instead of going for point solutions, look for security platforms that boost integration between systems. This lessens the need to keep switching between tools and all data becomes more visible, even remote user activity.
4. Users Mixing Home and Business Passwords
If you tend to recycle your passwords, you should stop it now. Using the same password for different websites or accounts means that if one of them becomes compromised, your password could get posted on a site such as pastebin.com. Then attackers will be able to take over every account you own, even the ones you use for work. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?
Using personal devices and networks makes this worse since the standard of security is not as high as it is in the office.
As a precautionary measure, security teams must teach users how to tell if they are being phished, advise them to create strong and unique passwords, and use a password manager especially if they have a hard time remembering their passwords. Enforce multi-factor authentication and client certificates. Everyone in the organization should be informed of this, especially if they do not have an on-site email or network security.
5. Opportunistic Phishing Attempts
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a lot of uncertainty and has also given scammers an excellent opportunity to phish. They influence users to click on malicious links by instilling fear, panic, and urgency. This is why the Coronavirus Scam has so many victims. When users get overwhelmed with information about the pandemic, it pushes them to indiscriminately click on every link related to it.
In order not to become a victim of phishing, employees should be informed about how to detect and report suspicious emails. They should also be instructed to keep their email security updated and their endpoints protected.
If you simplify your home security, you’ll be able to fight against these threats effortlessly. You can do this with the secure remote file server access using Triofox.
Simplify Work from Home Security with Triofox
Triofox provides remote access using agents to connect to the corporate network via HTTPS. These are some of the advantages of using it for remote work:
Simplifies remote access
It makes remote access so easy that users don’t need the training to be able to access it. It gets rid of VPN headaches and support calls. You don’t have to move to the cloud.
You are also provided a mapped drive that’s similar to the one connected to the file server.
Makes remote access just as secure as working in the office
It insulates corporate networks from unmanaged devices. This eliminates the threat from unmanaged networks and devices that can easily be hijacked to create Trojan horses that use VPN connections as infiltration conduits.
Helps control your unmanaged endpoints
Triofox’s management console provides policy-based administrative controls that prevent or protect against suspicious behavior on the client’s server. These are:
- Stopping executables and zip files from being run from mapped drive. You can be sure that there wouldn’t be any unwanted access to your files through the mapped drive. You’ll be able to find the location of the data, who can access it, and how they’re using or sharing it. You can centrally manage users, access controls, and storage for each user if desired.
- Auditing and reporting to keep track of suspicious behavior. Every activity is monitored so you know whether someone has hacked into your server or if malware is present. You won’t have to panic over a surprise security attack.
- Endpoint encryption, remote wipe, and other data loss features. No need to worry about your files getting corrupted or accidentally deleted. You also don’t have to fear losing your data forever.
Stay Safe from Remote Access Risks
Cyber attackers are always on the prowl whether you’re working in the office or at home. You need to take the necessary measures to secure your network and devices wherever you go. You must be able to select a security solution that fits your remote team and educate them on how to spot these potential cyber threats.
Don’t let remote access risks ruin your business continuity. Keep remote access risks and other IT threats at bay by installing Triofox now. We mobilize your servers and increase your workforce’s productivity without sacrificing data ownership, data privacy, and security. We also help you achieve a seamless transition to remote working by securing your remote and mobile access to file servers.
Want to know how to safely share files in a remote office? Read our guide about secure file sharing.