Many businesses are allowing or requiring staff to work from home due to the health crisis we are all facing. Being in the security industry, we have seen hackers take advantage of remote working by enacting various social engineering attacks as well as other strategic attacks to gain access to your organisations’ systems and information. In times of uncertainty and rapid changes, data risk exposures for these institutions increase in numbers and complexity. Therein, data risk prevention should be front and centre of organisations’ strategies.
CTRL Group will help you address cyber risks you are exposed to methodically and efficiently.
Below is a checklist compiled by our security experts to guide you in getting clarity on part of your security set-up that needs improvement:
Remote Access Policy
- Define a policy and ensure all staff are aware of your requirements and best practices.
- Consider the security controls being circumvented by offsite access and determine if additional controls need to be implemented to address it.
- Talk to us about data risk assessment and general assistance with policies.
Business Continuity Planning
- Has your Business Continuity Plan adequately addressed security, resource and communication requirements to move off-premise with minimum disruption?
- Have business functions been effectively prioritised to prevent unacceptable outages and disruption?
Remote Access Training / Safe Practices
- Provide staff training to ensure proper process is followed, practising best data and cyber hygiene at all times.
- CTRL Group can provide video and on-premises training to bring home the messages.
Connection
- Consider not allowing home networks to connect to corporate environments.
- Consider using provided corporate 4/5G Networks.
- Ensure capacity management is being adequately addressed, and that your corporate connections can cope with the influx of traffic and data that comes with remote access.
- Ensure your cloud deployments are adequate to support large scale work from home activities.
Encryption
- Use a VPN solution to connect to the corporate network.
- Protect data adequately in motion through the tunnel.
- Use modern encryption types.
Multi-Factor Authentication
- Implement MFA for privileged accounts first then deploy MFA for all accounts.
- Using authenticator apps such as Microsoft Authenticator makes the process very streamlined.
Passwords
- Ensure password complexity requirements meet new standards which are three random words, uppercase, lowercase
and special characters with a minimum length of 13 characters. - Consider the use of password managers like LastPass Enterprise.
Data Loss Protection
- Consider implementing data loss protection to prevent data leaking onto BYOD devices and devices outside of
corporate control. - Talk to CTRL Group for our recommendations on data risk prevention.
Monitoring / SIEM & Endpoint Security
- Monitor staff and connections the same as you would when on-premise.
- Deploy monitoring that utilises a mixture of CTRL analysts and machine learning software.
- Ensure all devices including BYOD devices have endpoint security installed and patched.
- Consider control over devices including BYOD such as Microsoft Intune.
Response
- Ensure you have a proper incident response plan that includes remote breaches.
- Test your plans and make improvements.
If your organisation is in need of extra capacity and/or guidance in ensuring you are ticking off the checklist items, please get in touch with CTRL Group for an initial consultation to assess your risk exposure and provide a clear plan on how to address them effectively.
