The pandemic also triggered a significant increase in scams, with cyber scams spiking by 400% in March 2020 as remote work and online activities surged.
In 2020, the sudden switch to remote work highlighted new opportunities for cybercriminals. Businesses of all sizes faced an established and urgent challenge: securing sensitive information in a decentralized, often ill-equipped, digital environment — from unsecured home networks to work conducted on personal devices.
Even in 2024, hybrid and fully remote work models are still a common mode of working, this inherently puts data security for remote workers at risk like never before. Cybercriminals have changed their tactics, targeted not just single employees but also exploited network vulnerabilities in organizations. In the modern era, it has become imperative for organizations to identify these risks and implement effective remote working data security measures.
In this blog, we will share some of the best practices to help you protect your organization data, remote employees and enable your organization to embrace this new work order without compromising on security.
Why Data Security for Remote Workers Critical?
While the rise in remote work and an era of interconnected devices has driven the world towards the state of convenience, it has also increased the concerns of cyberattacks. Unsecured networks and devices are becoming the primary target for cybercriminals to attack the data causing a serious threat to individuals and organizations.
It is advisable for the company to check the security measures. By actively addressing the issues and vulnerabilities we can safeguard the data, reduce the risk of breaches.
Common Threats to Data Security for Remote Workers
Business Impact
The breach in data security for remote workers has a far-reaching impact on business. A single event can lead to severe monetary losses, reputational damage, and legal consequences. These impacts are interrelated and emphasize the importance of preemptive measures, as well as a strong and integrated incident response. That said, without further ado, here are the three primary ways a remote data security breach can cripple a business.
Financial Loss: There is a major direct and indirect financial loss that an organization has to bear in case of remote working data security breach. The direct costs include the theft of funds, revenue loss due to disruption of business, cost of investigating the breach and responsibility management. A hefty cost would also be there for reinstating the security and mitigating the effects of the attack.
Reputational Loss: The incident of data breaches also led to a hit on the reputation of the organization. The resulting loss of customer trust leads to attrition, negative branding, revenue loss, loss of market share, and would impact the loyal customers of the company. There would be a significant impact on overall customer relationship and the company has to work on the loyal customer base from the scratch.
Legal Consequences: Data loss may also lead to the lawsuit against the company. The customers or individuals whose data has been violated may file a lawsuit and can demand a substantial amount of money against the violation. Due to strict data protection laws in many countries, it may attract regulatory fines and penalties for non-compliance of data protection laws. To secure themselves against any breach companies use data loss prevention solutions.
- Increased data visibility
- Sophisticated content analysis
- Robust and adaptable architecture
Key Challenges of Data Security for Remote Workers
Securing sensitive data in a world of employees working from different locations, on different networks, requires a multi-layered approach. Companies operating outside of conventional office spaces risk new, increased vulnerabilities due to the less controlled security functionality of remote employees. Let’s check some of the major challenges related to data security remote working when it comes to working from remote locations:
- Device Security: Device security plays a crucial role when it comes to data security for remote workers. As the organization often does not have access to the networks used outside the company this may raise serious concerns many times. The use of unsecured devices or open networks may lead to malware injection into the system resulting in data leakage and loss. Additionally, people tend to download applications and softwares from unsecured sources that also increase the risk of attacks and data theft.
- Network Security: Unsecured home connections and the use of public Wi-Fi connections by remote workers may put the company network at risk. Generally, these types of open connections are often under the radar of hackers as they are easy to target and hack. An awareness session should be held by every organization, emphasizing the role of secured networks.
- Data Access and Sharing: In the rise of work-from-home environments, secure networks and sensitive data sharing are soaring challenges. Cybercriminals take advantage of unprotected connections — be it a public Wi-Fi hotspot or a home network with poorly secured devices to crawl into the system, implement data interception, or steal sensitive information.
- Compliance Requirements: Difficulty in maintaining regulatory compliance when employees work from various locations. With employees working in various locations, it becomes tricky to ensure strict data handling and protection standards that regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, etc. mandate. Without the secure environment of a corporate office, it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure that data is processed, stored and transmitted securely. On the one hand, tracking and monitoring compliance along a widely dispersed workforce is itself challenging, but then also very true is the fact that compliance regulations differ from region to region.
Best Practices for Ensuring Data Security for Remote Workers
When it comes to remote data security, you can never be too proactive. With threats lurking around every corner, business should implement some given practices for better protection against data breaches.
- Establish a Robust Security Policy: A clearly defined security policy will help your remote workforce understand how to safely handle data. Set guidelines for secure file sharing, password management and incident reporting.
- Implement Multi-Factor Authentication: MFA is a proven method of adding a strong layer of security that confirms the user's identity using more than just a password (e.g. password plus one-time code). This greatly minimizes the hazard of illegal access.
- Data Encryption: If data is encrypted both in-transit and at-rest data is not easily read and utilized by anyone who may intercept it, rendering it ineffective for bad actors. Hence businesses should promote data encryption and secure VPN connections.
- Regular Security Training: Train Staff on Current Cybersecurity Risks including the most frequent threats such as phishing. They should be trained to identify any suspicious behavior and respond accordingly, reducing the chance of the breach occurring.
- Use Secure Cloud Services: Teams that are based at different locations usually turn to cloud-based tools. This is why it is important to use secure cloud services which have strict access control policies. When configured inappropriately, these services can be exploited and result in information leaks and unauthorized access.
- Backup Critical Data: Frequent backups protect your data from loss during a cyberattack like ransomware, or a hardware crash. Cyber experts strongly recommend automatic encrypted backups to safe locations.
Enhance Data Security for Remote Workers with Fidelis Elevate®
With remote work becoming a new normal, implementing strong data security for remote workers is essential. Fidelis Endpoint® offers a cohesive solution to the demands of a work-from-home world.
The tool provides real-time visibility into network and endpoint activity of remote workers and enables response to threats before they can cause any harm to the organization’s data. Built-in threat intelligence powers Fidelis Elevate® to both reveal potential threats and automate response actions to ensure proactive and efficient controls of remote working data security. A highlight of Fidelis Elevate® is its capability to immediately isolate devices that have been compromised ensuring data security when working with remote teams. In addition, it also provides data loss prevention solution that ensure the availability of data for continuity of operations.
If your organization is embracing the future of work (and all of its associated security challenges), then investing in solutions such as Fidelis Elevate® becomes a necessity. By securing remote worker systems and networks, businesses not only secure sensitive data, but also build a certain level of trust with clients and stakeholders. From enabling remote work with the right tools, to ensuring productivity and sustainability, we are now looking at paving a way for remote work data security for resilient business model of this digital age.
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