Remote work comes with a host of cybersecurity challenges requiring immediate attention. The problems are compounded by the fact that the recent transition to the work-from-home environment has brought about an increase in cyberattacks on businesses. Nevertheless, there are steps you can take to secure your employees while they work from home.

In this blog post, we are sharing an IT security checklist designed especially for remote work. The checklist in spreadsheet form can be downloaded using the link provided at the end of this blog post.

THREAT LANDSCAPE FOR REMOTE WORK

In the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, many companies have moved to a work-from-home environment. While this allowed the employees to work from the safety of their homes and kept them safe, healthy, and away from the coronavirus, remote work increased their exposure to cyber threats that pose serious challenges to maintaining “business as usual” from home.

As expected, there has been a significant uptick in the number of cyberattacks on businesses in the past couple of years. This can be attributed to the fact that people working from home are easier targets for cybercriminals.

Also, most home networks and devices are not maintained at the same level of security as office devices, so they are more vulnerable to cyberattacks. It is very likely that the number of cyberattacks employing spear phishing, social engineering, and hacking attempts will increase while companies transition to a complete or hybrid work-from-home environment.

HOW TO SECURE A WORK-FROM-HOME ENVIRONMENT

Securing work-from-home environments present many challenges for businesses. You will have to ensure that the networks and devices distributed across multiple locations are not only secure but also able to access company data with ease. If you transitioned to a work-from-home environment hurriedly or if you already had a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in place, you will have to deal with a variety of personal devices. This will make providing support difficult because of a lack of standardization.

As you try to tighten your work-from-home IT policy, you need to be extra vigilant because many security features that are common in the office may be unheard of for home users. Here’s a checklist of items you need to go through in order to make the work-from-home environment of your employees safe.

WORK-FROM-HOME IT SECURITY CHECKLIST

• HOME NETWORK SECURITY

Here are the steps for securing your remote employees’ network:

• Ensure that all devices on the home network are using WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access II).

• Use a virtual separation to isolate devices onto a dedicated work network segment.

• Download and install the firmware, updates, patches, and upgrades only from trusted sources.

• Ensure that a firewall is in place to protect the network against unauthorized access.

For a more comprehensive guide on securing your home network, check out our blog post Network Security Best Practices For Remote Employees.

• SOFTWARE PATCH MANAGEMENT

Software patch installation is critical to stop hackers from exploiting known vulnerabilities. 

Here are the checklist items for patch management:

• Ensure that your staff’s personal devices only use licensed and supported software.

• Ensure that updates and patches are installed as soon as they are available.

• Use a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution for deploying security patches, and updating operating systems and applications.

• MALWARE PROTECTION

There has been an upward surge in phishing attacks since the pandemic. These attacks use social engineering lures in emails trying to take advantage of the anxiety surrounding real and fake crises. While your employees may, in general, be well informed about phishing emails, even a small slip-up may cause a serious security breach.

Here’s how you can safeguard against phishing and malware:

• Ensure anti-malware and antivirus software is installed on all personal devices.

• Configure the anti-malware software to automatically scan and block malicious content.

• Configure the antivirus and anti-malware software to automatically scan the devices at regular intervals.

• Enable auto-update on the antivirus and anti-malware software.

• USER ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

Preventing cyberattacks begins with your employees. They are often the weakest link in your IT security chain. Therefore, you need to have checks in place that limit the damage in case of a breach. 

Here are some user management best practices:

• Give each remote user a unique username and account

• Document the privileges of each user account and get them approved.

• Use only one standard remote access tool to maintain consistency.

• Give remote access to critical company resources only to authorized users.

• Make the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) for remote access mandatory.

• IT POLICY 

A robust IT policy for remote work educates your employees regarding their role, the tools available, how to act in case of emergency, etc. A clearly defined comprehensive policy empowers your employees as well as holds them accountable by serving as a guide and providing directions when the employee is in doubt about IT operations and security.

Here are some IT Policy best practices:

• Make 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) mandatory.

• Educate your employees about cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities as they work from home. 

• Teach your employees how to identify phishing and the steps they need to take if they get phished.

• Provide a point of contact and clear guidelines in case there is a security breach.

• Make the use of a standard password manager solution mandatory.

• Conduct phishing audits to test the preparedness of your remote employees.

• Ensure regular backups are conducted.

• Keep “read-only” as the default when granting file share permissions.

• Use an email filtering solution to filter inbound as well as outbound messages.

• Protect against spam, malware, and phishing by using mail filters.

ENSURING CYBERSECURITY FOR REMOTE WORKERS

Remote work comes with security risks that need to be addressed before you can allow any employee to work remotely irrespective of whether your work-from-home policy is temporary or permanent. Using this checklist you can easily visualize the state of security of your remote employees, identify the vulnerabilities, and prioritize the ones that need immediate attention.

In addition, you need to understand that cybersecurity solutions are not “set it and forget it”. You need to monitor not just your IT infrastructure but also the developments in the threat landscape. Stay up-to-date with cybersecurity news so that you are able to implement security measures for new threats as and when they are known.

Providing cybersecurity for remote work is a challenge, but if correctly handled it will create a secure work environment and enable you to fully utilize remote work for increased productivity, talent retention, and employee happiness.

As promised, here’s the link to the checklist in spreadsheet format: IT Security Checklist For Remote Employees

If you liked the blog, please share it with your friends