According to Buffer’s 2020 Survey, 98% of employees polled would prefer to work remotely for at least some time during the rest of their careers. A lot of them did not have this option before the Covid-19 Pandemic transformed the nature of work. With no choice available, both employees and their bosses have come to realize the complications that can arise due to remote work.
Remote work tends to be a lonelier affair than working in an office and at times could be non-productive as well. But, there are more significant challenges than these. Remote work has the potential of putting businesses at risk due to growing cybersecurity threats. Let’s have a look at the top remote work security threats and how to avoid them:
1) Low levels of security on personal and mobile devices
When working remotely, employees often use their personal devices and, on occasion, insecure Wi-Fi networks, which can expose critical business data to cyber threats. According to Wandera’s report on mobile threats, 87% of successful mobile phishing attempts occur outside users’ inboxes.
Companies need to increase employee awareness regarding cybersecurity and hold regular training sessions to educate them about best practices when working remotely. Organizations should implement stringent password policies and carry out periodic security audits to ensure compliance with the policies.
2) Give remote workers access to secure remote cloud storage
With the rise of consumer-facing storage solutions like Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox, etc., remote workers may tend to use such solutions to store company data online. While this may be convenient and economical, such consumer-facing storage solutions are vulnerable to cybersecurity breaches and hacking attempts.
An alternative is to provide your remote workers with access to a cloud file server solution that implements granular permissions. By doing this, you will get higher levels of security and can also help restrict access only to those workers who are authorized to access the data.
3) Using an insecure internet connection
Remote workers do not have the benefit of logging into the internet through a secure company network. Typical company networks use robust security measures such as firewalls and proxy servers, which are regularly monitored by corporate anti-virus software. To get around this issue, you can emphasize that remote workers need to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) software to connect to the internet. A VPN has many benefits, such as hiring an employee’s IP and securing access to a company’s business network.
4) Not installing updates and patches on personal devices regularly
Most offices have an IT administrator, and large enterprises have well-staffed IT support teams that take care of updates and patches to operating systems and anti-virus software. However, remote workers may not be in the habit of updating their software regularly. This could potentially give hackers access to your remote workers.
The best way to overcome this is to have your remote workers go through training courses, providing them with a security checklist and holding regular security audits.
5) Not having adequate backup and recovery strategies
Organizations generally have stringent backup and recovery strategies, taken care of by their IT support departments. However, remote workers may not be disciplined enough to take regular backups of their devices. What’s more, many of your remote employees may use the same device for business and personal use. So, if a remote employee’s laptop crashes due to downloading malware (for example, malware that could come with a pirated game or a movie), the business data stored in that laptop could be lost. Restoring that data may be difficult if the remote employee has not been regularly backing up their data.
To overcome such situations, organizations can think of enforcing a backup policy for their remote workers. They can also acquire a license of cloud backup solutions that covers remote employees. Doing so will help to restore business data in the event of a remote employees’ system crash.
In Summary
With remote work here to stay, organizations and remote employees alike need to be aware of security threats that can compromise sensitive business data and take appropriate steps to avoid them.
