Four ways to reduce your exposure to cyberattacks as a result of remote/home working

Remote working is helping to get control of the coronavirus emergency and mitigate the economic impact on businesses. However, without exception, we find that remote working is one of the top three critical vulnerabilities which can result in a serious cyber incident. There are a lot of things to consider and guidance will vary by business, but the following is the latest advice from REC business partner Mitigo to proportionately reduce this risk of a cyber breach.

Review cyber vigilance

Staff behave differently in a home-based environment and cybercriminals are actively creating new attacks to exploit the change in business arrangements. Our action points for you:

1. Acceptable use of a company laptop – business and personal life should not be blended. The starting position should be work use only.
2. Unattended machines – be conscious of who can see your work and lock your machine when unattended. Set auto-lock to max 5 mins.
3. Phishing attacks – increased vigilance is vital especially as fraudulent emails and infected videos, related to coronavirus, are already proliferating.

Top Tip: Staff should re-do cyber training and tests when they start remote work. A simulated attack may be appropriate for a prolonged period of home working.

Maintain effective controls

Important technical controls that are run centrally in the office network environment do not operate when working away from the office network. Here are three things to consider when setting up work laptops for remote working.

1. Anti-virus – make sure that the application is up-to-date and configured to proactively scan devices, attachments, and downloads. You should consider upgrading to a version with a cloud portal so that control and alerts can be maintained centrally.
2. Operating systems (Windows or Mac typically) – this is usually centrally managed when connected to the office network, but remote working prevents this. Machines need to be reconfigured to update independently, and staff shown what role they must play in that update.
3. Back-up – this will vary hugely by business setup. Seek advice on the new configuration setup required.

Top Tip: A periodic check on a sample of devices, to check these three controls are working, is a simple way to get some comfort in this area.

Review defensive configuration

The change in working arrangements requires a change in the configuration of the laptop’s defences. So, the machine settings on remote devices will need a new configuration including:

1. Encryption (e.g. BitLocker) – needs to be enabled, without exception, to protect in the instance of a lost machine.
2. Local admin – make sure any local admin rights have been removed from the user’s profile.
3. Wi-Fi – laptops should be configured only to allow secure wi-fi connections.

Top Tip: Seek appropriate advice on the changes required to keep all devices safe. Please make sure you think carefully about where to keep the encryption recovery keys.

Secure remote connection

This can go horribly wrong if done incorrectly. Our advice will vary dramatically depending on your business processes, your IT set-up and the third-party software you rely on. If in doubt, please seek support, but our advice is:

1. Update the remote connection software – services need to be brought up to the latest version to ensure they are patched against known cyber vulnerabilities.
2. Don’t allow personal devices. Where at all possible remote machines should be work devices, configured to the points above. Seek advice before connecting home and personal computers to your secure network.
3. Strong authentication – enable these settings on the cloud applications you use. E.g. MFA on Office 365, 2 step verification on G suite. Most of the applications, where you log on via a web page, should have something that is stronger than just relying on a password.

Top Tip: If you must rely on a password make sure it is strong and unique (not shared or reused), oh and don’t store it in plain sight.

The REC has partnered with Mitigo to offer technical and cybersecurity services to our members.

For more information contact Mitigo on 0161 8833 180, email rec@mitigogroup.com or visit https://www.rec.uk.com/business-support/business-partners/business-partners/mitigo-targeted-cyber-security

Image credits: Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash