To exercise caution from the Covid-19 outbreak, businesses transitioned to telecommuting in March, some as early as February, and some may continue into later 2020. This shift to a remote workforce has challenged businesses to quickly deploy collaboration and productivity tools that allow workers to communicate, share and work from the safety of their homes. But as organizations work to deploy these solutions to maintain business continuity, IT teams are also being challenged with potential security threats.
Employees are connecting to unfamiliar devices, applications and networks as they work from home which leaves them and the organizations susceptible to potential attacks, data leaks or threats. According to a report by Microsoft Security, attackers are attempting to steal passwords and data by using fake COVID-19 emails. If one of your employees clicks on a link in a malicious email, the damage could be costly.
To help address some of these challenges, Core held a webinar a few weeks ago discussing how you can mitigate and get ahead of potential security threats as your employees work from home. Here are a 3 Security Considerations from our Core Security experts:
1. Endpoint Protection Security
With the potential of remote users leveraging unsecure applications, devices and connections, setting up proper endpoint protection is now your first line of defense. The lack of protection for your endpoints could introduce significant security risks that can leave your data and devices open to bad actors.
For example, if your employees accidently leverage unsecure and passwordless network, that traffic and information can be easily stolen by attackers. Ensuring that all incoming and outgoing traffic is encrypted via strict and modern standards is critical to protecting your company’s data and devices.
2. Enhance End-User Security Awareness
Core’s partners such as Cisco and Microsoft are preventing more than 60,000 phishing attempts a day that are using fake COVID-19 messages and emails. With the potential to steal passwords or access sensitive data with a simple click of a link, making sure your employees understand cybersecurity threats or best practices can help your company stay protected.
We’ve worked with many companies to provide training that helps end-users understand threats and avoid phishing and other social engineering threats. Reiterating the policies and compliances through awareness and training can mitigate remote security threats.
3. Identity & Access Management – Security for your users
Protecting your data and your users is more important now than ever before. As your employees work from home and leverage their own devices, granting access to the approved information they need must be done so with proper controls.
Identity and access controls help to verify users’ identities, manage visibility into the devices, and enforce policies to secure access to every application and data point. Multifactor authentication provides an extra layer of identity protection. Providing MFA with a user-friendly experience and powerful security capabilities allows you to safely and selectively grant access into your environment.
We know the current challenge you are facing – we are working with countless customers like you to keep their organizations secure in this difficult time. Core BTS has the capabilities, tools and experts to help your organization be secure. Contact us to learn about our Secure Remote Workplace Assessment to understand the posture of your company and increased remote users.
