5 Cybersecurity Strategies to Assist Your Remote Workforce!
With offices shifting to remote working due to the pandemic, ensuring the security of employees’ devices has become an issue of major concern these days. Today, it is important for businesses to take proper cybersecurity measures to keep business-critical information safe from hackers.
Consider this worth-noticing statistic on cybersecurity: data breaches cost organizations an average of $3.92 million and $17,700 is lost every minute due to phishing attacks.
Meanwhile, cybersecurity experts warn that a new wave of cyberattacks is targeting Americans who are presently working remotely due to the recent stay-at-home orders enforced in many states. In fact,
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an alert on cyber vulnerabilities related to working from home.
Whether you have a remote team by design or you’re adjusting your business structure due to recent events, you can’t afford to ignore the proper cybersecurity measures that will keep your business-critical information safe from hackers.
In an examination of thousands of security incidents, Verizon found that almost all malware arrived on computers via email: this was true in 94% of cases.
A data breach not only causes the loss of business-critical data and sensitive customer information but also tarnishes your reputation, erodes customer trust, and leads to hefty fines.
In a survey conducted by Dell, 63 percent of companies said their data was potentially compromised within the last twelve months due to hardware- or silicon-level security breach.
And not to mention, you’d likely incur expenses associated with forensic investigations, data recovery, and credit monitoring for the affected customers — which can impact your bottom line for years to come.
It is important for businesses now to have the right cybersecurity strategies in place to protect your systems and data when employees are working remotely. Consider these 5 cybersecurity strategies to assist your remote workforce! Let’s read these tips to enhance cybersecurity while remote working in detail now.
Provide Cyber Security Training to Employees
Here’s how you can ensure the cybersecurity of your organization while working remotely. One of the best cybersecurity strategies to assist your remote workforce is by providing detailed information about the latest cybersecurity threats that can steal sensitive information. Cybercriminals can hack and steal critical information from employees using phishing emails, voicemails (vising), text messages (smishing), and more.
22% of organizations see phishing as their greatest security threat.
Remote workers are targeted by hackers to gain unauthorized access to company accounts or internal networks. Also, cybercriminals can send malicious links or attachments via email for attacking business networks. These links install malware or ransomware on the employee’s computer and steal data after accessing the network.
64% of organizations have experienced a phishing attack in the year 2017.
A single click on any of the suspicious links may allow malicious entities to infiltrate your system. Thus, you must make sure that all your employees are provided with proper training on the latest cyberattacks that exist in cyberspace. Let’s read further to know about the other ways to prevent cyber threats during the pandemic.
Secure all Digital Communications
Securing all digital communications is one of the ways to prevent cyber threats during the pandemic. Make sure that all employee and client communications existing in the network are encrypted. Keep a security check and complete control over the security of these communication channels. If possible, provide all the tools that your employees need to exchange information.
Security-first solutions, execution of cybersecurity strategies, digitally fueled operating models — all of these are issues that corporate leaders need to consider now, says Accenture.
Email is the “usual suspect” in corporate communications that is responsible for most of the malware attacks causing great data losses. You can use specialized encrypted email providers to protect vital information that is being transmitted in emails while communicating with clients.
E-mail encryption and security solutions for information sharing have taken a more crucial role in recent years.
The increasing popularity of messaging apps just can’t be ignored. Most of the mobile applications built today have end-to-end encryption as default or as an option. Choosing any of these built-in encryption ensures sure everyone is set up with the proper security options when using the platform. Also, you must adopt speed optimization strategies for the quick loading of your websites to ensure cybersecurity. Clearly, this is one of the most popular cybersecurity tips to follow while working remotely.
Use Managed File Transfer (MFT) Software
Let’s continue our discussion on the major cybersecurity strategies to assist your remote workforce. The use of Managed File Transfer(MFT) Software is one of the most important tips to enhance cybersecurity while remote working. Cybercriminals can easily hack your employees’ email accounts in order to get unauthorized access to the email accounts of your employees. This is why most of the business organizations use the MFT software as a preferred option for file transfer.
According to a report, the global managed file transfer (MFT) software and service market accounted for USD 1,128 million in 2018 and is expected to reach USD 1,800 million globally by 2025, at a CAGR of 6.9% between 2019 and 2025.
To ensure the cybersecurity of your business, it’s important that employees, clients, staff, customers, and partners within your business network are not transferring sensitive data and files via email. Instead, install an MFT software to send and receive files in the cloud and across private networks securely.
The software encrypts all your information before it’s transmitted to the recipients to protect your data from being stolen through malware attacks. Undoubtedly, this is one of the most popular tips to enhance cybersecurity while remote working.
Reinforce Endpoint Security
Let’s read more on Cybersecurity tips to follow while working remotely. Here is one of the most commonly adopted cybersecurity strategies to assist your Remote Workforce. The devices being used by your employees act as a potential entry point for hackers to infiltrate your business network.
Therefore, it is important to ensure that these enterprise endpoints are well-protected and safeguarded from cyber attacks such as phishing attacks, malware, and more. Most of the Cybersecurity attacks start at endpoints, such as workstations or mobile devices, and then pivot to critical data sources on servers. This is why organizations these days can be seen spending more on protecting endpoints security than ever before.
Gartner’s latest forecast of global information security and risk management spending is forecast to reach $174.5B in 2022, attaining a five-year Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 9.2%. Improving endpoint controls is one of the highest-priority investments driving increased spending.
Thus, it’s important for businesses to be aware of the latest ways of endpoint detection and response. Moreover, make sure that your employees lock their devices on a daily basis physically by shutting down their systems and digitally by locking the passwords. All devices and equipment should be password-protected so that the data is encrypted until the device is unlocked with a passcode.
Establish Secure Connections
The employees should connect to your internal servers via a VPN connection, which encrypts all the data that is being transmitted. Doing this makes the entire data unreadable to anyone who intercepts it, thus ensuring the safety of your data.
Moreover, make sure that your employees take the necessary steps to secure their routers. Make use of a strong password protocol and multi-factor authentication. Most of the systems are breached because hackers often steal the employee’s login credentials and use it to infiltrate the whole network.
In order to prevent this from happening, you need to enforce effective cybersecurity strategies. Enforce a strong password policy for accessing your networks and systems. For an extra layer of security, you must implement multi-factor authentication wherever possible. This helps you to ensure that the user requesting access to your system is an employee and not a hacker who’s using stolen information.
Cybersecurity Strategies: Final Words
Today, over 70% of all breaches originate at endpoints, despite millions of dollars spent by organizations every year. By implementing these cybersecurity strategies, you can ensure enhanced safety and security of your organization’s sensitive data.
IBM Security’s most recent Cost of a Data Breach Report 2019 found that the average cost of a data breach in the U.S. grew from $3.54M in 2006 to $8.19M in 2019, a 130% increase in 14 years.
