Companies limit the IT risks associated with remote work by means of specific protective measures and technical solutions.
Profiling The Home Office
It is crucial for a company to determine in advance profiles of remote workers depending on their area of responsibility and what information teleworkers can access. The security mechanisms for occasional remote workers and for full-time home office workers may not be the same. The first step in preventing outside intrusion into the company’s information system is to introduce a system for identifying the home office worker, which will take effect as soon as it connects to the company system. Ideally, you should rely on multiple authentication.
Separation And Protection Of The Hardware
The simplest measure to avoid the risk of virus contamination between the employee’s hardware and the company’s IT system is still to assign the teleworker a computer for professional use only, which is updated regularly by the IT staff to the required level of security. The user must not be granted administrator rights on the computer provided by the company. However, almost 30% of the workforce is not provided with a smartphone or laptop by the company. This should be a thorn in the side of IT managers, especially at times when it is advisable to work from home.
The data flow between the workplace of the employee and the company network can also be secured by the VPN. However, this security device is not even installed on many private computers. In itself, this model can be temporarily replaced by the use of a multi-secured virtual office platform. These cloud platforms make it possible to access sensitive company data from anywhere and from any computer. What ultimately counts, is the integrity of the company data, which is saved or processed on the local private computer in order to be subsequently fed into the company network. Securing them requires a whole series of measures that require time for implementation and that can only be pushed to a limited extent with private devices, which is why it is advisable to coordinate them exactly with the home office.
