In fact, recent research from Enterprise Strategy Group found that 68% of survey respondents in the UK, 66% of those in the US, and 56% of Australian respondents reported that they expect work-from-home trends to increase over the next 24 months.
As teams spread out across cities, states, or even continents, the need for strong, scalable cybersecurity practices has never been more critical. While remote work offers greater flexibility and productivity, it also expands the digital attack surface — and increases the potential for human error — which bad actors rely on for a successful cyberattack. Protecting sensitive company data, securing access points, and maintaining compliance should be top priorities for any organization embracing a distributed workforce.
In this blog, we’ll explore how to maintain security when employees work remotely — including threats to watch out for and best practices to put in place.
Security is one of the most pressing concerns for remote work environments. Without the protection of a centralized office network, remote employees rely on home networks, public Wi-Fi, and personal devices — all of which can create vulnerabilities.
Remote work increases the risk of:
As businesses evolve, so must their approach to cybersecurity. A proactive strategy ensures employees can work from anywhere without sacrificing safety and security.
Remote work introduces a unique set of security challenges. While remote work can lend itself to deeper focus and better efficiency, it can also create a disconnect in security standards. Understanding these risks is the first step to mitigating them.
Phishing emails can trick employees into revealing login credentials or clicking on malicious links. With workers away from IT supervision, they may be more likely to fall for deceptive messages — even the most discerning employees may still fall for schemes like website spoofing and AI search results leading to unsafe pages. Bad actors are counting on that type of error. In fact, 95% of all data breaches are caused by human error, such as clicking phishing links.
Home and public Wi-Fi networks often lack enterprise-level security protections. For example, a remote employee connecting from a hotel, coffee shop, or airport may be exposed to other devices connected to the same network. When that happens, attackers can intercept data transmitted over unencrypted connections, putting sensitive company information at risk.
Although your team may be very careful, laptops and smartphones used outside the office are more likely to be lost or stolen. Without proper safeguards, unauthorized users could gain access to company systems and data — even if unintentionally. For example, a family member may log in to a device and accidentally access, and compromise, your customers’ personal information and data.
Authentication is your first line of defense, not just for remote employees, but for all. Ensuring that only the right people have access to the right resources is essential in a remote environment.
MFA requires users to verify their identity with two or more factors — such as a password, plus a one-time code or biometric scan. Implementing MFA significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access, even if login credentials are compromised.
SSO enables employees to access multiple applications with a single login. This simplifies the user experience and allows IT teams to maintain tighter control over access points, while still maintaining Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
Strong, regularly updated passwords reduce the likelihood of brute-force attacks. Additionally, regular password changes help prevent potentially compromised credentials from being successfully used, especially in an era when data breaches from third-party vendors are the norm. You can help by enforcing company-wide policies requiring complex passwords and prompt periodic resets.
Once you have locked down your company-wide authentication process, it’s crucial to make sure that access to your business assets is secure. Using secure remote access technology can help ensure that employees can safely connect to corporate resources from anywhere.
A VPN encrypts internet traffic, creating a secure tunnel between the employee and company network. This is essential for shielding data from eavesdroppers on untrusted networks. You can take this a step further with a Zero Trust VPN that builds the foundation for a Zero Trust strategy.
ZTNA operates on the principle of "never trust, always verify." Instead of automatically trusting users or devices inside a network, ZTNA continually authenticates access and limits exposure to only necessary resources. You can enforce ZTNA by requiring the use of a VPN, but that is only the beginning. The core of ZTNA is the Zero Trust strategy.
Secure Web Access (via secure web gateways) filters and monitors internet traffic to block malicious sites and enforce web usage policies — helping prevent remote employees from falling victim to online threats. Secure web gateway (SWG) solutions detect and prevent threats, unauthorized access, and malware using a digital barrier and filter between a website and an end-point device. This blocks access to potentially harmful sites in addition to cyberattacks. You can think of these as the castle moat, defending against threats that may try to cross your border.
Communication and collaboration are the heart of remote work. Using secure tools ensures that collaboration doesn’t come at the cost of compromised security — but how can you make sure your collaboration tools are secure, especially when many are SaaS tools that are managed outside of your organization?
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) ensures that only intended recipients can access messages. Popular tools with E2EE help keep conversations private and protected from interception. It’s important to note, a VPN is considered an E2EE tool, because an E2EE tool protects the contents of your message by encrypting it while in transit.
Use file-sharing platforms that offer encryption at rest and in transit, user access controls, and audit trails. This helps prevent data leaks and ensures files don’t end up in the wrong hands.
Monitoring and auditing the tools your team is using can help detect abnormal behavior, giving you a chance to stop an attack before it starts. For example, you can check audit logs for unusual file downloads or access attempts, enabling early threat detection.
The endpoint is often the weakest link in cybersecurity. Ensuring software integrity is an essential, but not the only way to protect the endpoint.
All employee devices — whether company-issued or BYOD — must meet predefined security standards before someone can access corporate resources. Allowing devices that are out of compliance with your security standards can risk not only a breach, but may also create compliance issues with external regulations, like GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO, and others. This is not an optional piece of the puzzle, but a core piece of the foundation on which your entire security strategy rests.
MDM tools allow IT teams to remotely enforce security policies, install software updates, and wipe data from lost or compromised mobile devices. These tools can be part of a greater security tool, like a VPN, or can be included in other software like JumpCloud, Zoom, or Jamf.
Outdated software is a prime target for cyberattacks. We recommend that IT managers automate updates and patch management as much as possible to close known vulnerabilities across your device fleet. However, there may be software updates and patches that need to be completed by the employee on each of their devices. Make sure that you have a clear communication method for sharing these required updates, and follow up on devices that have been flagged as not being updated.
Even with the best precautions, incidents can occur. Early detection and swift response can make all the difference — not only in protecting your reputation and preventing further damage, but in staying in compliance with various legal requirements as well.
SIEM systems aggregate and analyze security data from across your infrastructure, providing real-time insights into potential threats and unusual behavior. This is critical, especially in teams that may not have the manpower to manually monitor every system. Ensure your VPN solution is capable of capturing and forwarding critical log data — such as VPN connections, DNS queries, and traffic flows — in a format easily ingested by your SIEM. This enables comprehensive monitoring and correlation of VPN activity alongside other security events for improved threat detection.
Periodic security reviews help evaluate current defenses, identify gaps, and maintain compliance with industry standards or regulations. These audits should be done on a regularly scheduled basis. You may also find it helpful to have an annual external security audit to ensure that there are no gaps your team is missing.
Your response after a potential incident or breach is as important as planning to prevent it. The way your team responds has the biggest reputational impact — a panicky or unprepared response can make customers and employees feel ill at ease. An incident response plan should outline the steps your team should take in the event of a breach — helping you contain the threat, minimize impact, and resume operations quickly. This should include communication with customers and employees, how you will communicate with press (if any), how you plan to resolve the issue, and any reparations your business is prepared to offer, should the breach be large enough. In addition, it should include methods to secure the business and compromised data, the update and patch process, and other technical details.
As remote work becomes a long-term strategy for many organizations, robust security practices are no longer optional—they're essential. From securing devices and data to monitoring access and responding to threats, companies must adopt a layered approach to protect their distributed workforce.
Recommended reading: A Beginner’s Guide to VPNs and Working Remotely
If you're looking for a trusted VPN solution, whether a cloud VPN service, a self-hosted VPN, or a comprehensive Zero Trust framework, we’re here to help your remote or hybrid team stay safe — wherever they log in for the day.
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