Hybrid and Remote Workforce Cybersecurity Best Practices

Employees have become accustomed to the freedom of working from home due to the pandemic. As a result, hybrid work has left an indelible impression on individuals and organizations worldwide, and it has shown to be a viable long-term solution for many workplaces.

According to an Accenture study, approximately 60% of employees have worked in a hybrid model in the last two years, and 83% believe hybrid work will be the most effective in the future. As workers redefine work-life balance and employment flexibility, forward-thinking businesses understand the need to accommodate their employees in a hybrid or remote setting and consider how they deliver continuous and secure access to their workforce. Online security is critical to ensure the success of your business, but traditional approaches to network security fail to guarantee consistent standards in remote instances.

So how do you create a space that is both productive and secure for employees? Let’s explore what privacy looks like in the era of hybrid and remote work and provide solutions to get you started protecting your organization. 

Is hybrid working best for your company?

While COVID-19 cases are lower now than they were at the start of the pandemic, this does not mean America’s workforce has returned to pre-pandemic levels of functionality. Even though enterprises like Ford Motor, Google and American Express have implemented return-to-office policies, employees continue to find interest in a hybrid workforce.

The issue that remains is achieving a balance between the needs of the organization and its employees, while maintaining a high level of security. It can be difficult to strike this balance because it requires regularly analyzing the workplace environment and updating security measures as needed. How your office organizes its working model is entirely dependent on what works best for your company's goals and the interests of your teams. Before implementing a hybrid or remote working paradigm, it is critical to understand its benefits and limitations.

Advantages and disadvantages of hybrid and remote working

Unfortunately, individuals who prefer traditional on-site work must adapt to the new norm in order for their organization to remain lucrative and current with workplace trends, which is hybrid work and remote work, and it is here to stay. However, there are pros and cons to committing to a remote model which need to be considered before moving forward.

The advantage of offering a hybrid or remote work model include:

• The chance to hire incredible candidates from around the world.
• Lower overhead costs of maintaining a large office space.
• Employees can instead spend the time commuting to educate themselves, spend time with their families or train.
• Building trust with employees to choose the work style that fits their needs to maximize productivity.

While a hybrid system includes advantages such as flexibility and high productivity, businesses must also be cognizant of its downsides, such as greater cyber risk. Therefore, remote workspaces require a rigorous cybersecurity program since employees' out-of-network devices, such as their own laptops or smartphones (also known as endpoints), are vulnerable to attack. To that end, partnering with a managed security solution provider can provide significantly more security through advanced monitoring technology.

Creating a secure network for remote and hybrid workers

Cybersecurity should be a primary concern when it comes to expanding your network to hybrid or remote workers. Even if you're not in an industry dealing with sensitive data, such as at a hospital or finance, your business is likely collecting customer data daily. Offering hybrid and remote working has many benefits, but it is essential to have your security bases covered. For this reason, we've outlined everything you'll need in order to have a successful and secure working model.

Zero Trust

For your hybrid or remote workforce to be successful, employees must be able to access job-critical information regardless of where they’re at. Unfortunately, this opens the door for cybercriminals to exploit loopholes. To address this, Telesystem’s FortiClient Fortinet Security Fabric Integration provides a zero-trust application.

The zero-trust security approach assumes that all associated devices and identities in any environment, whether a physical server or a cloud service, are not secure until they have been confirmed as such. With FortiClient ZTNA by Telesystem, all participants are blocked until they are authenticated via automatic encrypted tunneling, allowing administrators to conduct real-time investigations of each session's application access. This enables better remote access solutions and consistent application-controlled access policies to be implemented, regardless of where your employees are located.

For a hybrid or remote workforce to be successful, a zero-trust access model is necessary. This enables your business to respond to security threats while allowing employees to work from any place and on any device of their choosing, thereby increasing productivity. With an emphasis on verification as opposed to implicit trust, your organization can build a robust security system, improve employee experience, and maintain control in an ever-expanding attack surface, all of which will be critical as you prepare for the future of work without jeopardizing your current operations.

Advanced Email Protection

Remote work has made employees rely on email, especially for exchanging sensitive information. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 85 percent of employees have reported sending more emails, raising the prospect of an outbound email data breach. With so many users now operating in hybrid environments, it is easier than ever for fraudsters to reach this exploitable population. As a result, email security should be regarded as a critical component of your company's cybersecurity.

Email protection is absolutely necessary in order to have a productive and secure hybrid workforce. With Advanced Email Protector by Telesystem, it guards against spam, email viruses, and malware, as well as other forms of email-based attacks that are frequently ignored. At the same time, it offers encryption and screening of outbound emails to avoid any critical internal information from being mistakenly sent by your staff. This assists in preventing data leaks caused by breaches in the company's internal security.

Employees frequently send confidential business information via email to partners, colleagues, supervisors, and internal services. The volume of emails employees receives daily leave them with little time to devote to each one, giving them a false sense of security. Our comprehensive email security program eliminates the time-consuming task of determining which emails may lead to data breaches. It allows employees to focus on their work without worrying about a potential cyber threat compromising their entire company, allowing their hybrid workforce to operate securely and with peace of mind.  

Endpoint Protection

With the expansion of work outside the office, businesses must secure not only their office spaces and endpoint devices, but also their home networks. An endpoint is the starting point of an attack that has the potential to spread and spiral out of control quickly. If one of an employee's endpoints is compromised, various cyberattacks such as ransomware or even a data breach may occur. Such cyberattacks can make a company's financial and reputational recovery extremely difficult. For a company to have a successful and productive hybrid workforce, businesses must invest in endpoint security. With Endpoint Protection from Telesystem, you will be able to take the necessary precautions to protect your organization and personnel.

Endpoint Antivirus protection is a comprehensive IT platform that effectively secures business users and their data while improving system efficiency and reliability. Our proactive whitelist security stack approves a list of email addresses, IP addresses, domain names, or applications while rejecting all others, seamlessly protecting your organization from viruses/malware and ransomware threats that optimize your cyber infrastructure. Endpoint antivirus protection enables you to take the necessary precautions to protect your company's employees, supervisors, and clients without interfering with their daily operations.

Security Awareness Training

Although employees may make mistakes, security breaches are preventable and far too costly to overlook. While some errors are unavoidable, most employees make poor security decisions because they don't know any better, such as entering their password on a phishing site or falling for social engineering tricks. Employee error, whether due to carelessness or unintentional, is responsible for 92% of data breaches.

Employee mistakes can have far-reaching consequences not only for the individual, such as lost productivity, but also for the entire organization. For example, if a company is the victim of a cyberattack, it will almost certainly experience downtime, which could result in lost revenue and business opportunities. Businesses affected by ransomware attacks lose an average ofsix days of work. In addition, an estimated 70% of the company's employees' productivity is lost during the remediation process. One of the simplest ways to maintain a firm stance against these escalating threats is through Telesystem’s comprehensive Security Awareness Training program.

Our platform is designed to teach employees and managers how to recognize electronic break-in attempts. Through thorough cybersecurity awareness training, we will educate your staff on risks such as spam, phishing, malware, ransomware, social engineering, and more. This training lowers the likelihood of employees making common mistakes that give hackers access to valuable data and system programs. Overall, one of the most significant things you can do for your enterprise's cybersecurity measures is to build a security culture. Don't rely on yearly training. Take a more proactive approach with your personnel. Employees are your first line of defense, and educating them about security policies and expectations can go a long way toward ensuring the safety and long-term viability of your company and its data. 

Technology solutions to get you there

Successful organizations not only plan ahead but also react quickly when change occurs. In today's world, a hybrid or remote workforce is becoming the new standard, and businesses must adapt to remain lucrative and current with workplace trends. From integrated and expanded collaboration opportunities to team member flexibility and higher productivity, hybrid working can significantly advance your business. However, it's vital to think about protecting your assets.

When it comes to creating a hybrid workplace, cyber resilience cannot be compromised. Therefore, it is necessary to choose a partner who supplies a comprehensive array of products and services for an end-to-end framework. Telesystem has the security solutions your hybrid and remote business needs, designed for productivity and top-of-the-line security. With our employee Security Awareness Training, Advanced Email Protector, Zero Trust approach, and Endpoint Protection, you'll have peace of mind knowing that your business and employees are protected. Learn more by requesting a quote today.