As companies adjust to the new reality of their employees working from home in response to COVID-19, identifying security needs rests on the shoulders of overworked IT departments. Before the pandemic, a small cohort, of the North American workforce, had transitioned to working remotely, whether as freelancers or corporations.
Today and likely for the foreseeable future, several companies have adopted the work from home policy for its employees, thus leaving themselves open to cyber security issues. And, this is where the importance of a company’s IT department skillsets is needed most because, if employees are too relaxed about security compliance, it can put an entire company at risk for cyber threats.
This article by Scarlett Rose, titled 5 Cybersecurity Strategies to Assist Your Remote Workforce makes the case, that companies must employ IT strategies to keep their data safe. It reads in part,
Provide Cyber Security Training to Employees: Here’s how you can ensure the cybersecurity of your organization while working remotely. One of the best cybersecurity strategies to assist your remote workforce is by providing detailed information about the latest cybersecurity threats that can steal sensitive information. Cybercriminals can hack and steal critical information from employees using phishing emails, voicemails (vising), text messages (smishing), and more.
Secure all Digital Communications: Securing all digital communications is one of the ways to prevent cyber threats during the pandemic. Make sure that all employee and client communications existing in the network are encrypted. Keep a security check and complete control over the security of these communication channels. If possible, provide all the tools that your employees need to exchange information.
Use Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software: Let’s continue our discussion on the major cybersecurity strategies to assist your remote workforce. The use of Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software is one of the most important tips to enhance cybersecurity while remote working. Cybercriminals can easily hack your employees’ email accounts in order to get unauthorized access to the email accounts of your employees. This is why most of the business organizations use the MFT software as a preferred option for file transfer.
Reinforce Endpoint Security: Let’s read more on Cybersecurity tips to follow while working remotely. Here is one of the most commonly adopted cybersecurity strategies to assist your Remote Workforce. The devices being used by your employees act as a potential entry point for hackers to infiltrate your business network.
Therefore, it is important to ensure that these enterprise endpoints are well-protected and safeguarded from cyber-attacks such as phishing attacks, malware, and more. Most of the Cybersecurity attacks start at endpoints, such as workstations or mobile devices, and then pivot to critical data sources on servers. This is why organizations these days can be seen spending more on protecting endpoints security than ever before.
Establish Secure Connections: The employees should connect to your internal servers via a VPN connection, which encrypts all the data that is being transmitted. Doing this makes the entire data unreadable to anyone who intercepts it, thus ensuring the safety of your data.
Moreover, make sure that your employees take the necessary steps to secure their routers. Make use of a strong password protocol and multi-factor authentication. Most of the systems are breached because hackers often steal the employee’s login credentials and use it to infiltrate the whole network.
Bottomline: Organizations should have strong systems and processes in place to ensure business continuity. And, even if its only part of your workforce that works remotely, you should take the time to think about the security of your network and have a policy in place, that spells how everyone should use it when logging into your network.
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