Remote IT & Security. Is your business and corporate data at risk?

Overnight, the COVID-19 pandemic has permanently changed our approach to remote IT and security. We went from offices full of collaboration and activity to at home offices now exposing businesses and corporate data to increased risk.  At Thrive, we hold a daily management meeting to review and discuss the implications of a remote workforce during this experience. Many organizations are following a similar protocol as well, and although it has taken some getting used to, it has shined a light on how well we are able to collaborate remotely.

Our president, Marc Pantoni, mentioned the other day on one of these calls that the focus at the beginning of the Work From Home period was stability but as it matures, many organizations will start to focus on risk management as they were during prior to this unplanned event.

Over the years, we’ve seen disaster recovery tests become quite commonplace but now we’ll start to see pandemic tests or WFH tests become much more prevalent.  This isn’t fear mongering, it’s prudent risk management.  I surmise that like many of you, my work from home plan was my laptop sitting on a home office desk or perhaps a kitchen table.  My home office did not have all the trappings of my branch office. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve gotten quite efficient at WFH and for many end users that environment is here to stay even once we all return to the office semi-full time.

Securing that location will now become a higher priority.  For many senior leaders and high-tech workers, we will look to high value yet low effort solutions to protect the household.  For years network security companies have added a feature to their devices that is not very widely used that can provide “clean” network connections.  This function, usually called transparent mode, introduces unified threat management appliances into home networks without changing the overall topology of the environment.  This means that we can add intrusion prevention and malware protection at the network level without the needing to swap out the consumer wifi solutions, which are very popular.  Fact is, having malware on a home network is as big of a problem as it is on an office network regardless of where it resides.

To understand this concept a little easier, here’s a simple network diagram:

These solutions are extremely straightforward to setup and maintain as opposed to creating a branch office inside a home office.  It allows for added protection of all devices on the network without the headache of redesigning the entire home network.

If you have questions or concerns about remote IT and security, Thrive is here to help. CONTACT US TODAY!