The outbreak of the Corona Virus (COVID-19) reveals many employers are unprepared to have employees work remotely. According to the US Department of Labor, only 29% of workers have the ability to work remotely. The number of low-income employees who are able to remote in drops to 8%.
The lack of preparedness in this area is creating a large window of opportunity for hackers and cybercriminals to exploit through the employees’ home computers and remotely logging into company servers. Home computers simply are not secure enough. Research in this area indicates that 25% to 33% of home computers are all-ready infected with viruses, trojans, malware or keyloggers.
Other issues include:
- Many home wireless networks are not very secure.
- Home computer antivirus are not secure enough for company security needs.
- How many employees need to remote in?
- How long will the employees need to remote in?
- How much access will employees need to business applications and data bases?
- Many employees fail to follow cybersecurity best practices at home.
Ideally, you want the same protections in place with remote users as you do while they are sitting at their desks. The most important thing is to continue to protect the company data from cybercriminals!
In summary, here are some tips about your company developing a remote worker program:
Avoid:
- Letting users use their home devices
- High level or deep access into servers. (Only allow access to what is needed)
Encourage:
- Logs of all remote users.
- Using Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) for as many platforms as possible.
- Providing locked-down encrypted systems (laptops, desktops, notebooks) for employee use.
- Keep all remotely accessible systems fully patched and backed up.
- Video / teleconferencing solutions and voice systems to keep employees connected.
- Video camera usage of employees while working from home for accountability and connection.
- Secure VPN and RDP usage.
- Restricting access to only what is required for each remote worker’s job role.
Tech Guardian has solutions for businesses in the Inland Empire needing to give their employees safe remote access to work from home.
Please call us at 951-319-4080 to answer any questions or to start getting your employees working remotely.
