Secure Remote Access

Staying secure while you’re away from the office is a big challenge for today’s busy business leaders. Are you confident that your data and applications are fully protected?  

Does your business currently allow employees to telecommute? Before you say “no”, keep in mind that anytime someone accesses your business systems and data from a remote location, they are technically putting your entire company at a massive security risk. Even if you don’t have a formal work-from-home strategy in place, it’s likely that your executives and senior business leaders are still accessing information in a way other than the highly-secure, centrally-located desktop PC or laptop that was provided as part of their employment. Whether that’s checking their email or grabbing a Dropbox file from their phone or tablet or taking their laptop to a Starbucks to get some work done — work is happening everywhere and it’s vital that you be prepared to handle these security risks.

Benefits of Remote Access for Employees

Many businesses are moving to a remote workforce for a variety of reasons, from reducing office space requirements and travel costs to providing a more flexible working environment for staff members. Organizations are often geographically distributed, and finding the best local talent for your unique needs could be a challenge. Providing a stable and secure way for your employees to access the information that they need so they are not losing productivity is becoming an important part of today’s technical infrastructure. Companies are seeing that finding and keeping their best talent requires providing a path to work-life balance, and that often includes creating a retention policy that includes finding ways to allow work to happen anywhere.

Vulnerabilities of Remote Access and RDP

When you allow remote work, you have to consider not only the way individuals will connect to their business information but also how technicians will be able to remotely support your mobile workforce. That is often accomplished through RDP, a remote desktop protocol that is widely used by technical professionals. Unfortunately, there are several known vulnerabilities in this type of setup, creating opportunities for enterprising cyber criminals to enter your business network and infiltrate your data structures.

Actively Managed Remote Access

One solution to this seeming dilemma is to work with an organization to actively manage your remote business application, data and desktop access using enterprise-scale tools that are regularly updated and highly secure. If your web protection is outdated or you’re facing poor data encryption procedures, there’s a high possibility that your information could quickly fall prey to hackers. One key consideration with a mobile workforce is the location of stored data. If you have staff members maintaining duplicate records of sensitive business information on a personal computer, you’re also placing your business at risk of compliance liabilities. With multi-factor authentication and active management of remote access channels, your business is more likely to be compliant with data privacy policies, too.

Creating a comprehensive strategy to provide remote access to staff members is more than simply setting up a few logins and remote access IDs. You need to have a full understanding of the various scenarios and challenges that are facing your business from a security perspective. At ECW Network & IT Solutions, we work with organizations of all sizes to tighten the security gaps and reduce the possibility of cyberattacks from all directions. Contact our proactive team of security experts today at {phone} or fill out our quick online form for a free initial consultation.