During the Pandemic, Cyber Security is More Important Than Ever

Since the start of the COVID 19 pandemic, it has been clear that many businesses were not prepared to continue their operations remotely. This was largely due to their leadership being convinced in recent years that permitting people to work remotely would lead to a significant reduction in production, leading them to be unprepared to shift to remote functionality. Cybercriminals have taken advantage of many companies as a result. Below we discuss what needs to be accomplished to secure endpoints from afar.

Many of the tools and strategies required to keep your organization's data infrastructure secure may be new to you and your business, but in most cases, they are measures that any business that wants to protect its IT should take. Here's a look at some of the strategies used to secure remote endpoints.

Virtual Private Networking

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a tool you may have heard of that establishes an encrypted connection between your business’ network and a remote endpoint. This allows people to send and receive information securely by passing it on via an intermediary network. The configuration of the VPN is where people start to get confused.

IT administrators must therefore decide which security priorities to set for their network and which to disable. With more data coming in—and encrypted, for that matter—more bandwidth will be needed, and the amount required for the entire team is going to be costly. However, there are clear security concerns without the VPN in place, making this a delicate balance.

Phish Fighting

Phishing is one of the biggest cybersecurity issues for both in-house and remote employees, but arguably is a larger risk for an employee working from home. After all, they likely aren’t under the same protections that should be set up in the office. Today’s Endpoint Protection and Response (EDR) tools can help to mitigate some of this risk, but the onus will still be on the user with their fingers on the keyboard.

Thus, training your employees to recognize an attempted phishing attack is the most effective way to really deter them. Establishing and repeatedly reinforcing the best practices and warning signs, and what to do if they do encounter one, is the best strategy to protect your business from phishing.

Threat Intelligence

Naturally, you shouldn’t rely exclusively on your end users to protect your business. Your IT department should also have installed a comprehensive threat intelligence system, which helps to keep you protected from new threats as they develop. At the very least, your IT resource will be kept up to speed on the threats posing risks to your technology.

Incident Response

Finally, you have to account for the fact that one of your users will likely mess up and get “hooked” by a phishing attack. Nobody’s perfect. In these cases, the EDR can help you determine how badly you’ve been breached, quarantining the impacted areas and resolving the threat. There are even options to help automate your anti-hacker efforts.

Putting it bluntly, any business that uses technology—really, any business currently in operation—needs to worry about its cybersecurity. To learn more about the protections and precautions you should take, give our IT experts a call at 703-359-9211.