Cybersecurity strategies for businesses with remote teams

Operating a business with a decentralized workforce is no longer a foreign concept in many industries. More organizations are recognizing the financial benefits and operational advantages of offering more flexible working arrangements for their employees.

However, one of the significant challenges this new working culture has created is the prevalence of cyber threats focused on taking advantage of the less-than-adequate security measures often made by employees who lack the awareness necessary to secure their networks and devices.

To tackle these issues, organizations need to better understand the risks of managing decentralized teams while adopting comprehensive and proactive strategies to mitigate them effectively.

Understanding the Risks
While many businesses can scale successfully with a decentralized workforce, the risks inherent with siloed employees and broader cyberattack surfaces also increase. Organizations' lack of transparency or awareness of the various security threats they're facing can create several vulnerabilities that can be exploited.

Below are some of the most common risks organizations with decentralized workforces face:

●      Data breaches — There is an increased risk of unauthorized access leading to critical data breaches when an organization doesn't have full visibility over their users.

●      Phishing and social engineering campaigns — When employees are trusted to apply their own discretion when handling their day-to-day assignments, it can be much easier to fall victim to unmonitored phishing and social engineering campaigns.

●      Inadequate device and network security — Employees who are allowed to use their own devices and networks for their work often do not apply the same best security practices as the organization they work for.

●      Vendor management issues — As decentralized workforces tend to rely more on third-party vendors to help streamline their workflows, this can often lead to higher risks of data leakage, especially when working with vendors that don't apply or practice strict security protocols.  

Building an effective cybersecurity strategy
To minimize the exposure that comes from supporting remote working arrangements, there are some essential cybersecurity strategies businesses should adopt:

• Implementing security policies and training

While remote working affords employees considerable freedom and flexibility when it comes to getting their work done, this doesn't necessarily need to apply to their security readiness. Setting clear standards for securely managing their day-to-day tasks with updated security policies and adequate training is essential.

Take the time to implement a comprehensive training program for new and current employees operating remotely. This training should cover everything from awareness of the latest cyber threats to effective risk mitigation strategies that should be applied.

• Keeping remote access secure

Businesses have several options available to them when helping to secure outside connections into their networks. VPNs (virtual private networks) are often one of the first lines of defense businesses use to help ensure that users accessing their system from outside its network boundaries are correctly verified.
Another line of defense that businesses should use when strengthening their network security is ensuring all employees use two-factor authentication (2FA) when logging into systems and databases. This further reduces the likelihood that malicious sources can access company assets even when providing compromised user credentials.

• Ensuring endpoint security and data protection

Decentralized workforces can significantly increase the number of endpoints that businesses need to secure. To better protect the number of unique devices accessing company assets, organizations should ensure all laptops and smartphones use the latest antivirus solutions and are correctly configured to use appropriate network firewalls.
Data encryption and regular system backups in secure locations are other layers of protection businesses should consider. This is especially true when organizations operate in highly regulated industries, such as healthcare and try to ensure they can achieve or maintain HITRUST certifications to build trust with clients or partners.

Putting together an incident response plan
Although having a proactive strategy in place to keep your business secure is essential, it's still important to prepare for worst-case scenarios.

Having a comprehensive incident response plan in place can be invaluable when recovering from a major cyberattack or when needing to recover sensitive data. The plan you create should take into consideration the decentralized nature of your business while applying a holistic approach to planning, documentation and testing.

Regular testing of your incident response plan is critical to make it both effective and supports your business's ability to get systems and databases back online before the downtime causes any irreparable damage. Penetration testing services can be a great investment to help evaluate vulnerabilities and test incident response plan's effectiveness and help identify any areas that may need improvement.

Keep your remote workforce and business protected
Having a decentralized workforce requires a proactive approach to managing cybersecurity initiatives.

By following the strategies discussed, you can successfully harden your organization's attack surface while still being able to afford employees with the flexibility and support they need to do their jobs effectively when working out of the office.