Addressing the cyber security challenge of a remote workforce

Changing how we secure and manage the corporate environment to reflect a remote, distributed workforce is imperative to reducing risk. As the current global pandemic hit and lockdown was enforced, organisations scrambled to ensure business continuity, and in their haste, have left the organisation vulnerable to attack.

Shifting to a remote workforce without due diligence results in several risk factors:

• Weak firewall configurations;
• Unprotected endpoints;
• Uncontrolled Internet connections; and
• Shared WiFi connections.

Left unaddressed, these risks increase the attack surface – which cyber criminals exploit to launch attacks. “A multitude of risk factors can be addressed by implementing a comprehensive security strategy that delivers visibility and control of remote endpoints,” says Jeremy Matthews, CEO of Panda Security Africa. Advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) and remote monitoring and management (RMM) technology can be used in combination with patch management and reporting tools that provide enhanced visibility and insights to build a robust security posture.

Understanding the tools and technology that exist to address the unique challenges around securing mobile and roaming users is imperative. Today’s advanced solutions are capable of far more than traditional anti-virus technology and can be effectively implemented to protect and monitor workstations, servers and devices; handle sensitive information; and secure connections inside and outside the corporate network.

Matthews recommends adopting flexible cloud-based technology that enables the following:

• Protection against ransomware and other advanced threats;
• Zero-trust based application control;
• Insights into machine and user behaviour;
• Centrally deploy software updates;
• Remotely monitor and support users;
• Automate endpoint maintenance and management tasks;
• Facilitates a ticketing system to reduce response time;
• Centralised management and control of the entire infrastructure; and
• Configure VPNs remotely for secure access to the corporate network.

Find out more about securing your organisation with EDR and RMM tools here, or join Panda Security Africa at the ITWeb Security Summit from 25 to 28 August.

Panda Security CTO Matthew Stevens, together with BDO South Africa National ICT Manager Nico Fourie will speak at the ITWeb Security Summit this month. They will discuss what led BDO to re-evaluate their cyber security stance and speak to the challenges they faced.

In a breakout session at the summit, Panda Security Africa CEO Jeremy Matthews and Snode Technologies CEO Nithen Naidoo will lead a discussion around the intersection of endpoint detection & response (EDR) and network threat analytics (NTA) – two critical technologies that should constitute a meaningful strategy.

Join Matthew Stevens in our Demo Lab as he illustrates how telemetry gathered by EDR technology can be visualised to gain insights into your organisation.