The coronavirus pandemic triggered new ways of working. Suddenly, the safe and familiar office environment was replaced by the home office, a type of office that has now fully or partially emerged as the “new black” in many industries and is most likely here to stay. The change, which is largely driven by employees’ increased demand for flexibility in life and obvious time and cost savings, has created a whole new playing field for employers who need to quickly adapt and introduce new ways of working at both business and individual level.
In the search for the perfect model for the hybrid office of the future, it is easy to start addressing the questions that spontaneously feel most urgent. Questions like “How can we ensure a good workplace culture and community if we don’t see each other in person?”, “How can I as a manager control what my employees do and don’t do?” and “How can we ensure that the home office is ergonomic?” are recurring themes in the debate when discussing the home office.
But maybe the home office is about more than ergonomic chairs and digital coffee breaks? In fact, our shift to new ways and places of working has opened many good doors, but perhaps also less good ones that actually risk causing harm to our businesses?
Information security + remote working = True?
With the rise of remote working, many companies have been reviewing their systems and services to ensure that work flows smoothly. However, in the rush to find new ways to collaborate and adapt to this new reality, one important parameter is often overlooked – information security.
If the worst comes to the worst, your business can be targeted by various types of cyber-attacks with serious consequences. Perhaps not only in terms of lost information, but also in terms of the cost of business downtime, expensive security consultants, overtime in the IT department, and damaged trust with your customers – who, in the worst case, have also had their information exposed.
Therefore, using solutions that protect your organization’s information and thus avoid being the victim of an unwelcome cyberattack becomes at least as important as finding smart and efficient ways to collaborate on information.
Organizations whose information is business or mission critical usually have good security procedures in place, but as new tools to facilitate remote working are introduced, users tend to start taking creative shortcuts and bypassing the rules and procedures that seem time-consuming or unnecessary at the time. This type of phenomenon is known as ‘shadow IT’ and, in the worst case, can create a perfect storm for those who want to access and use your information for the wrong purpose.
6 tips for safer remote working
So what is required of the tools used for remote working and how do you ensure that security is as good in remote working as it is in the office, or at least at a level that feels acceptable?
By starting to review the following elements, you can create the right conditions for safe and secure remote working for your business and perhaps increase security in your office at the same time?
- Map out how and where your information is stored and who has access to what in order to get a clear overview
- Apply the principle “on a need to know basis” and ensure that all users, regardless of role or job level, never have access to more information than necessary
- Make sure that your stored information is encrypted and not available in plain text on your organization’s file server. This also applies when transporting between clients.
- Ensure that your internal environment is set up in a way that makes it difficult to access the storage area for all information (in case of unauthorized access)
- Increase your control by making sure you have ownership of all encryption keys
- Review your ransomware protection so that malware can be detected before it can cause damage
A secure cloud service makes it easy to do the right thing
At Synkzone, we offer a secure, encrypted cloud service for storing, collaborating and accessing information. Through a zone system, you as an information owner control what different types of rights should look like and who is assigned them. We would be happy to discuss further how your organization can work remotely in a secure and efficient way without compromising security.
You are welcome to contact us for more information and a demo!