How Do You Properly Secure Employees Working Offsite?

How Do You Properly Secure Employees Working Offsite?

Secure Employees Working Offsite

There are more employees working offsite these days than ever before. With the evolution of mobile devices and cloud services, it’s easier than ever for someone to access their email while on the road or work remotely 100% of the time.

Companies have also realized the advantages of allowing employees to work outside the office. They save money on physical office needs (space, electricity, etc.) and employees are proven to be more productive when working remotely.

70% of people around the world work remotely at least once a week.

But, with the cost savings and higher morale that come with a flex work program, also come security concerns. Those concerns are also present when your staff is traveling and working while on the road.

When people aren’t inside your physical building, what happens to your security and managed services like antivirus protection, firewall defenses, and web filtering? It can all go away if you haven’t set up protections that follow your employees no matter where they are when they log into your network or company cloud services.

Security Solutions for Remote Workers

Unbound Digital puts security front and center when it comes to managing the technology infrastructure of the companies we work with. We know that your office technology infrastructure doesn’t stop at the door to your building and that users need to securely work from multiple locations.

Some of the challenges with managing security for offsite employees are:

  • UNSECURE PUBLIC WI-FI
  • HOME NETWORKS THAT MAY NOT BE SECURE
  • LOST OR STOLEN DEVICES WHILE TRAVELING
  • COMPANY INFORMATION ON A DEVICE ACCESSED BY OTHERS

There are several protections that can be put into place to help ensure your offsite workers are connecting to your data and applications just as securely as those inside your office building.

Virtual Private Network (VPN)

A VPN application provides a layer of security between your users and the internet. Instead of directly connecting through your ISP, you instead connect to a server owned by the VPN service, which then encrypts all traffic between your device and the network you’re using.

VPNs can be used on any device at your office or outside your office and provide a way to connect online that is secure, even if you’re on an unsecure public network.

Web Filtering

Web filtering is similar to a VPN in that it is a layer of protection between your users and the internet, the difference is that web filtering is designed to protect your users from malicious websites.

A web filter can stop a dangerous website from downloading malware onto a user’s computer even if they’re accidentally clicked a URL in a phishing email. They also warn users about malicious sites and can be used to block unproductive sites.

Mobile Device Management

Mobile use at work has become the norm and to reduce costs, many companies use a bring your own device (BYOD) policy where employees use their personal mobile phones to access work applications.

Through mobile device management, Unbound Digital can help you ensure that all those smartphones connecting to your company data are secured and the “business” side of the device is kept separate from the “personal” side.

Mobile device management enables things like access logging, remote lock and wipe, and automated patch updates.

BitLocker Device Encryption

BitLocker is a device encryption feature of Windows that encrypts your device data, keeping it safe from unauthorized access. This can be set up on computers that remote workers are using to ensure your business data is protected in the case of a stolen or lost device.

In order to access the data and remove encryption a user has to sign in with an authorized Microsoft account with administrator rights on the device or by using an Active Directory account on a Windows domain or Azure Active Directory account.

Antivirus & Anti-Malware Protection

It’s important that your company’s security policies and defenses are standard across all devices that access your business apps and data. This means ensuring a consistent set up of things like managed antivirus & anti-malware that can be updated and monitored automatically to ensure threats are being caught no matter which device a phishing email may come into.

Credential Management

Compromised passwords are a major cause of data breaches. How can you ensure all employees are practicing good password security and that no one that shouldn’t be is logging into your network?

Programs for credential management can provide a streamlined approach to credential management by giving you one central control system for managing logins across your company applications.

For example, if an employee is logging in from an IP address and location that the system doesn’t recognize as “standard,” you can have an additional challenge question given to them at login to ensure they are an authorized user and not a hacker.

Get Help with Offsite Employee Security from Unbound Digital

Don’t let security concerns keep your business from benefitting from a flex work program. We can help ensure that no matter where your team is connecting from that everyone is covered by the same strong data security strategies.

Contact us today to set up an IT security consultation. Call 423-335-2461 or reach out online.