On Demand: Secure Remote Access for Hybrid and Remote Tech Workers | OpenVPN Blog

Challenges for remote tech workers 

The technology industry is a treasure trove of valuable information, including intellectual property, trade secrets, customer information, financial data, healthcare records, or even federal information. 

Additionally, more technology products and services are interconnected through the Internet of Things (IoT), creating an even bigger and more complex attack surface. 

And all of this while engineers are encouraged to “move fast and break things,” fix, iterate, keep moving in the name of agility — a great way to foster innovation, but not always emphasize security. 

Further, in tech, getting top talent often means a hybrid or fully remote workforce. According to the Pew Research Center, around 22 million employed adults (14% of employed adults) in the U.S. work from home full time, and 41% work a hybrid schedule with some days remote. The same research found that an estimated one in five Americans will work remotely in some capacity by 2025, and in the tech sector that number is expected to be even higher.

Together, these factors make technology companies a prime target for malicious activity as employees may be connecting to vital assets and access points through unsecured networks from around the world. Especially in the era of the digital tech nomad, network security is often ignored. 

This isn’t just an issue in theory. Recent data found that 20% of organizations experience a data breach caused by a remote worker, and cyberattacks on remote workers have increased by 238%. Those attacks and breaches can cost companies thousands and even millions of dollars. According to a report from IBM, the average cost of a data breach in the tech sector was $4.66 million, with the average cost of a data breach for companies with fewer than 500 employees at $3.31 million. 

So how can you protect your company to avoid these breaches while still embracing a remote or hybrid workforce and focusing on a culture of innovation? By strengthening your network security and secure remote access. 

How OpenVPN can help

Protecting your customer or client data while also ensuring your remote employees can connect to the apps they need securely is a priority. OpenVPN knows that any breach erodes the credibility of your technology and business. We can help you protect privacy and ensure data integrity while innovating quickly. OpenVPN offers the following protections: 

• By encrypting data traffic, we help you ensure that sensitive information remains confidential as it moves across the internet, blocking it from bad actors and potential threats.
• All sensitive apps are kept private and can be accessed only using our products, thereby reducing the attack surface.
• OpenVPN’s Device Identity Verification Enforcement, or DIVE, reduces your attack surface by locking the device profile containing the digital certificate to the device's identity — allowing only authorized devices to connect to your WPC.
• SAML SSO allows you to centrally manage identity and permissions. These permissions can be enforced by our products by User Group mapping and Access controls. This limits lateral movement.

Securing remote access

With the rise of remote and hybrid workforce models, employees of tech companies — like developers and engineers — often access dev tools and platforms from various locations. Remote tech sales and marketing teams must also access a variety of customer data, platform use data, marketing list data, and website platforms from whatever network they are closest to, be it at home, in a coffee shop, or at an airport. 

Protecting secure remote access to data and a growing array of SaaS applications must become a priority for tech companies. 

OpenVPN’s remote access solutions help create a secure connection, allowing authorized personnel to access the organization's network remotely without compromising security. Whether working from home, traveling, or in a different office location, staff can securely connect to internal resources, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access or data interception. 

Mitigating cyber threats: 

• Data breaches: Tech companies store large amounts of sensitive data as third party services providers or technology vendors. Data theft is a common goal of bad actors targeting tech organizations.
• Ransomware: Ransomware attacks can hold systems hostage until the organization meets the attacker’s demands.
• Malware: Technology companies can be infected with various types of malware, that is then transferred to their customers. For example, infostealer malware can collect and exfiltrate login credentials that grant attackers access to confidential or critical systems.
• DDoS: A DDoS attack uses a network of compromised systems to bombard a target with more traffic than it can handle. Like a ransomware attack, a DDoS attacker may demand a ransom to restore an organization’s operations.
• Phishing: Phishing attacks are designed to trick the recipient into handing over sensitive information or infecting their system with malware. This is a common first step for data breaches, ransomware, and similar attacks.

OpenVPN helps mitigate these threats by encrypting data. With the built-in cyber security protection in CloudConnexa, you can make it harder for cybercriminals to intercept communications, launch targeted attacks, or exploit vulnerabilities in the network infrastructure. 

Get started with OpenVPN

The best time to set up secure remote access for your remote tech employees was the moment you had any employees at all. The second best time? Today. 

Get started for free with self-hosted Access Server or cloud-delivered CloudConnexa. Not quite ready to take the leap? Check out our self-guided interactive product tour.