Hiring remote employees expands your talent pool. Offering remote work also helps you retain employees during the Great Resignation Era.

Many employees enjoy the laptop remote work setup. They enjoy waking up at reasonable hours and skipping the commute. However, remote work also presents a business risk.

Remote employees weaken your network security. Your company becomes more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. 

You shouldn’t stop remote work because of a potential cyber attack. Businesses should take a proactive approach and protect themselves from hackers. We’ll share some of the strategies you can use to mitigate business risk below.

Required Password Changes

Hackers can obtain an employee’s password and enter into corporate servers. These hackers use malware and other resources to obtain passwords.

Some hackers will review previous data breaches. They will use previously leaked username and password combinations.

Hackers take advantage of human error. Many people use the same password for every account or several of them.

Establish a company policy for employees to change their passwords every 4-6 weeks. This frequency makes it more difficult for hackers to keep up and enter your systems.

You can have employees change passwords themselves or give them randomly generated passwords. Passwords without rhyme or reason are challenging for hackers to guess.

Multi-Factor Authentication

A hacker may obtain a remote employee’s password. They could use this information to enter your database.

A multi-factor authentication setup thwarts these efforts.

Multi-factor authentication adds a step to the login process. Upon entering the credentials, the employee receives a verification code.

These codes expire within a few minutes, giving hackers insufficient time. Require all of your remote employees to enable multi-factor authentication to boost protection.

Set Up Backups

Your best efforts may still leave you vulnerable to an attack. Setting up backup files lets you continue operating your business. You’ll also have essential files even if hackers delete them from your server.

Create backups away from your company’s cloud server. These independent entities remain for your eyes only. If your company gets hacked, you can share the new server with employees. 

You should create a backup to your backup before sharing it with remote employees. This procedure will further protect your company.

Provide Cybersecurity Training for Remote Employees

Every employee needs cybersecurity training. Remote employees are no exception to the rule.

Cybersecurity training makes your employees proactive in the fight against cybercrime. Giving employees the knowledge to stay safe helps your company stay safe too.

You can have a cybersecurity team conduct monthly webinars for your employees. Storing the sessions in a shared folder gives employees on-demand access to webinars. 

Keep Your Company Protected

Remote employees can increase your company’s productivity. However, they can also lead to more vulnerabilities. Proper education and protective measures can mitigate business risk.

You may not have enough time to implement these protocols or keep up with developments. Our team can help. 

We provide IT & Network services to various businesses. Get in touch today to see how we can keep your business safe.