Over 20% of workers work outside of the office full-time, but a far greater proportion of the population work from home part-time or on occasion. One of the main security pitfalls we find as experts in cybersecurity in Miami is that remote access opens security holes.
If your company offers remote access of any kind, it’s a potential security pitfall that you need to address to harden your security before an incident happens.
5 Common Security Pitfalls of Remote Access
1. Weak Access Policies
User-based access controls are a must, even when you have every employee access your systems with a virtual private network. A common security hole that we see is that users are allowed to log into the network, and they can penetrate the remainder of the network due to lax access policies.
You want to reduce an attacker’s ability to infiltrate your system from the start. For example, imagine Susie’s account is accessed and she has full access to systems. An attacker only needs to access Susie’s account and can penetrate the rest of the network.
Zero trust policies will put rules in place, so Susie’s account can only access:
- Strict resources
- Specific groups
If Susie needs access in the future to further resources, it should be granted on an as-needed basis.
2. Unsecured Home Networks
Your internal network may be 100% secure, but remote workers may access your business’s systems from insecure systems.
But what can you do to help workers secure their network?
You can:
- Train employees on basic security measures
- Issue company-owned and secured devices
Educating your workforce on how to remotely access your network safely will strengthen your security.
3. The Number of Devices That Must Be Protected Increases Exponentially
Remote access means that a growing number of devices are going to access the network, including:
- Personal devices
- Company-owned devices
All devices must be able to access fast system updates, antivirus and anti-malware products, too. If your workforce is distributed across a large region or multiple countries, endpoint security solutions may offer the best security for your network.
4. Phishing and Social Engineering
When you share an office with colleagues, they can walk over to you to ask questions. Remote access to systems added the risk of phishing and social engineering attacks. It's far easier for a hacker to:
- Impersonate an employee
- Run sophisticated phishing attacks
Employers can reduce the risk of phishing attacks by educating employees on the most common attacks and putting strict protocols in place.
5. Small Security Teams are Overrun
Businesses that scale fast need to have a cybersecurity team in place that can scale, too. Employers need to allocate adequate resources to security specialists so that they can:
- Identify weaknesses in the network
- Train employees to reduce security risks
- Address incidents rapidly
- Deploy updates and patches fast
Working with cybersecurity companies in Miami is a good first step to address the security pitfalls of remote access. Penetration testing and a full security audit will identify security risks and allow them to be patched.