Every organisation has now either moved to full or partial remote working for all its employees. There has been an exponential increase in “bad actors’ and hackers who are now taking advantage of what can be a significant decrease in our security posture, now that large numbers of users are remote working. 

The greatest threat is that the perimeter has now moved to the end user’s; identity, devices, their home networks and home offices as opposed to the comparative safety of the corporate network. Many of you have already deployed VPN solutions to encrypt and secure access to corporate data. This is a great start but is vastly insufficient. 

Many firewall vendors are giving free access to VPN solutions to clients during COVID including Palo Alto. If you are a Palo Alto client have a look at this link: https://live.paloaltonetworks.com/t5/Blogs/GlobalProtect-and-Prisma-Access-during-COVID-19/ba-p/316302

Microsoft is also offering free access to Microsoft Teams collaboration solution. If you aren’t currently licensed for Teams, Microsoft will provide a free Office 365 E1 license for six months: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/03/05/our-commitment-to-customers-during-covid-19/

It is critical for IT to maintain a fine balance between enabling the business to continue to operate, while also maintaining compliance and security. 

Here are 3 foundational solutions for maintaining security during these times.