It seems like
the COVID 19 pandemic is now but just a past memory. But, while this may be true, the variants of
it are still out there, and are affecting people to varying degrees. One of the offshoots of the pandemic was the
Remote Workforce. While this has never
been a new concept, the degree to which it happened is something that no individual
or business could have ever predicted. But
fast forward to now, and the Remote Workforce is still strong.
While many companies
are now trying to adopt a hybrid-based approach, many employees still prefer the
Remote Workforce. And, why not? As long as they are getting the work done and
meeting goals, what difference does it really matter where they work from? In fact, it has been shown in the past couple of years Working From Home (WFH)
actually makes for a much happier employee.
But even more
importantly, now that we have understood the ramifications of a near 99% Remote
Workforce, the Cybersecurity aspects of it must also be addressed. Remember the threats that happened when the pandemic
first hit? Such as the risks of intermeshing
of the corporate and home networks? And
that ever famous “Zoombombing”? While
these may now be or more mitigated, CISOs and their respective IT Security
teams need to realize that the Remote Workforce is now a permanent fixture in the
American society, and the Cyber risks that are inherent with it must be
addressed.
So, here are
a few areas which need to be paid attention to:
1)
Data
In Transit:
This
simply refers to the flow of network communications that take place between the
server and the remote device, and even vice versa. While the traditional VPN has proved
successful in encrypting this, it showed its vulnerabilities during the height
of the pandemic. Therefore, it is highly
recommended that you make use of something more advanced such as the Next Generation
Firewall.
2)
Data
At Rest:
These
are the datasets that are not being transacted or processed, but rather, they
are simply sitting in a static mode in your database. While they may not be being used, it is still
highly imperative that you protect them to the highest degree that you
can. This has, and continues to be of one
of the prized targets for the Cyberattacker.
Even more so, if you don’t protect these kinds of datasets with the right
type of controls, you could be in for a serious audit by the regulators of the data
privacy laws, such as the GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, etc.
3)
The
IAM:
This
is an acronym that stands for “Identity and Access Management”. Simply put, this is the policy that you have
in place to assign the rights, privileges, and permissions to each
employee. The cardinal rule here is to
follow the concept of “Least Privilege”.
This merely states that you don’t give employees any more access than
they need to in order to do their daily job tasks. If you are in the Cloud, such as with
Microsoft Azure, there are many IAM tools that you can deploy in just a matter
of a few minutes.
4)
The
Endpoints:
These
are the devices that your Remote Workforce is using. One of the other major problems during the pandemic
was that employees were using their own, personal devices in which to do their
job tasks, due to the fact that businesses simply did not have enough endpoints
that could be provisioned in time. But
now that we have learned this lesson, it is imperative now to fortify them with
either an EDR or XDR based solution.
5)
DDoS
and Phishing:
The
first one is an acronym that stands for “Distributed Denial of Attacks”. This
is where the Cyberattacker launches a flood of rogue data packets to the server
so that it will come to a grinding halt, and unable to serve the resources to the
end users. And of course, we all
probably know about, and have at least heard of Phishing. While these are some of the oldest threat
variants, they are still being used quite a bit even today. Therefore, you need to take the appropriate
protective measures to mitigate this from happening.
6)
The
Zero Trust:
The
traditional security model in Cyber has been that of the “Perimeter Defense”. Essentially, this is where only circle of defense surrounds the business,
and all of the defensive mechanisms are thrown at it. But guess what? If the Cyberattacker were to break through
this, they will then have total reign over your IT/Network Infrastructure. To avoid this, it is imperative that you
implement what is known as the “Zero Trust Framework” This is where the Infrastructure is segmented
out into different zones, and each one has their own layer of defensive
measures, primarily making use of MFA. This
is where at least three or more differing authentication measures are used to
confirm the identity of the employee.
The idea here is that that the statistical odds of the Cyberattacker
from breaking into your “Crown Jewels” becomes almost zero, given all of the layers
that they have to break through.
7)
Software
Patches:
This
is also one of the other cardinal rules in Cybersecurity. You and your IT Security team must keep vigilant
of the respective software patches and updates that come out from your vendors,
even including the firmware. They also
must be downloaded and deployed in a regular fashion. To make this effective, have a dedicated
resources that can keep tabs on this.
8)
The
Plans:
The
pandemic taught CISOs one very painful lesson:
The need to have Incident Response/Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity
Plans. Not only should they be documented,
but they also must be rehearsed at least once a quarter, and updated with the lessons
learned.
9)
The
Training:
Probably
even more now than ever before, you need to have regular Security Awareness Training
programs for your employees. These also
must be done at least once a quarter, if not more often. But one very important thing to remember here
is not to take a “one size fits all” approach
to the training. They must be
specifically tailored to the audience to whom you are delivering it to.
10) Compliance:
Today,
data privacy is very much a hot button topic, especially with the advancements that
are being made in Generative AI.
Therefore, you need to make sure that you are in compliance with all of the
applicable data privacy laws that you are supposed to abide by. One of the best ways to do this is to conduct
a Penetration Test, in order to find any vulnerabilities, and from there, remediate
them quickly.
My
Thoughts On This:
While these
tips just provided are meant to protect your Remote Workforce, they should also
be used in everyday practice to make sure that your employees, no matter where
they are located in the world, are always maintaining a strong level of Cyber
Hygiene.
No comments:
Post a Comment