Secure Remote Working

Remote working is almost entirely dependent on an uninterrupted connection to the Internet in order to access corporate and cloud resources. Employees can be deeply frustrated with intermittent or slow connectivity, which hampers productivity and increases stress levels. Imagine having to wait an hour to download a file, or having every other word missed on a phone call, or experiencing freezing pictures during a video conference with colleagues or customers. Ensuring a high quality of service for remote workers - for example, not being interrupted by family members on the home network - is important for overall happiness and wellbeing.

Attackers will use a variety of techniques to try to infiltrate your corporate network, so it's important to harden every device and network. Risks can come from (1) insecure, public or shared wifi networks which might snoop on your employees' activities; (2) Older hardware or unmaintained operating systems or software which are unpatched and vulnerable; (3) Open access to the corporate network so attackers can easily jump from a compromised machine to the entire network; (4) Human error such as clicking a link in a phishing e-mail or download malware; (5) Compromised devices on a home network which might be able to intercept corporate information whilst working from home.

Forcing all users to use a VPN to access the corporate resources is the first step of any good remote working policy, since it ensures encryption is used over every (public or home) network connected to, so data cannot be intercepted. However, VPNs still have weaknesses. For example, if an employee's machine is infected by malware, attackers will be able to use the same VPN to access the company network. Also, a traditional VPN typically allows for wide-open access to the entire corporate network, rather than restricting user access to only specific applications (ZTNA).

ZTNA is a new name for a relatively old concept. ZTNA can be thought of as "granular application access control", which means that individual users and devices connecting over a VPN can only access very specific resources, applications and data stores on the corporate network - rather than potentially having access to everything. Should an employee's machine then be compromised by an attacker, this could significantly limit the ability of the hacker to access information or cause damage.

Endpoint Protection is a software system used to help defend users and devices against threats such as viruses, malware, phishing and other system vulnerabilities. These are software programs installed onto each device which monitor activity of software, files, browser activity and e-mails, as well the status of the system as a whole (for example, to flag any patches required). Administrators can centrally monitor and scan devices, and set up policies to automatically block the device from accessing the corporate network if threats (such as missing patches) are found. Endpoint protection and management complements network security.

In 2022, a survey showed that 25% of remote workers were unable to 'switch off' from work at the end of the day, and may have continued working for longer than they should, impacting home life. If that concerns you as an employer, Gwhizz Networks could help by implementing timed constraints on access to the corporate resources - so come 6pm for example, access is automatically revoked from the corporate network for all regular users. That helps improve security outside office hours, whilst also encouraging a culture of work-home separation.