The Protection of Employees and Systems in Times of The Corona Crisis

The current situation around the coronavirus poses great challenges for everyone and home office on a large scale is now a reality for many organizations and companies in the long term.

It is inevitable that a lot of gaps and problems will arise when it comes to the performance of the IT equipment at home - and to ensuring that they can continue to work safely and effectively. It is to be hoped that your company has long-term established guidelines for working from home, which can also be expanded with recovery plans and current disaster management if necessary. But not every work environment is suitable for offering this to all employees who are able to do all or part of their work remotely.

The challenges we face here are many and varied: Basic IT equipment and software maintenance will be problematic. The boundaries of a company's network - and thus its attack surface - are expanding exponentially. Much data is now physically stored or made accessible outside of the company's own boundaries.

After all - and this is particularly important - all people without exception are increasingly exposed to stress, anxiety and lack of information. We're all likely now more vulnerable to social engineering attacks and similar scams, and we're also more inclined to take shortcuts to just get things done quickly - and safeguards are thrown overboard.

As we adapt to unfamiliar ways of living and working, it pays to reconsider the potential risks of extensive home work and to take active measures to assess and protect them. There is no specific order for this, but below are some of the immediate concerns.

Home Networking

Consumer-grade broadband connections often suffer from poor WiFi configurations, inadequately secured devices, outdated protocols, and so on. Extracting log data and remotely managing these networks is not only difficult, but often impossible. The old advice to ensure the best connection if possible via an Ethernet connection can help here - but only in connection with the use of VPNs.

Firewalls, VPNs, and Security Breach Investigations

Identity and access management (IAM) is critical, as is secure connectivity.

Of course, all employees should only be connected via a VPN, but planning for those cases in which this is not possible - for example problems with end devices, a damaged hardware token, etc. - must not be neglected.

However, many companies are also faced with employees doing work on their own devices. Depending on your company's MDM (Mobile Device Management) guidelines and the availability of thin clients, VM and other technologies, this practice represents both an opportunity and a risk. Inconsistent, outdated or faulty hardware and software add to the complexity .

Remotely Update, Patch, and Incident Response

Working remotely can make updating systems even more complex, as administrators are physically removed from users, their systems, and the backend infrastructure. The convenient solution of simply setting up a user's broken laptop at his workplace with a system image no longer exists. Processing security-related incidents to a large extent from home - while the users are also at home - poses a number of special challenges.

Caller ID

Fake call center support scams, widespread for over a decade, are likely to increase, and users are likely to be more vulnerable when they are under stress. It is critical that users verify callers - especially in the event of a link failure that prevents access to corporate directory services or help pages.

This brings with it another problem area: Should secure and secured communication channels fail or prove to be inadequate, users will be tempted to supplement them with alternative public services that the security team cannot oversee. This, too, emphasizes the importance of identity verification.

Some of these challenges can be improved at the first point of failure - the workplace - through the use of surveillance, telemetry and detection tools in each workplace. By installing forensic and response tools, devices can be remotely scanned and isolated if necessary.

As organizations and companies adapt to the decentralized work environment over the next few days and weeks - if not months - new complications and unforeseen consequences will inevitably arise. Microsoft team downtime over the past few days is one example of this, and there will no doubt be many more. Ensuring that devices, systems, and people are prepared for this type of disruption in the midst of an even greater disruption will remain a major challenge.

What did we fail to mention in this short blog post? What would you add to the list? Do give your feedback in the comments below and stay tuned with more information from us on this matter.

Using security antivirus like total security software is very important for protection while employees working from home.