Remote access has transformed many fields conspicuously including businesses. Although used for a long time, the pandemic has affected many industries and forced them to adopt remote access solutions. Among other dreadful consequences, it ceased production and business life. Most companies met remote access due to avoid the pandemic’s devastating effects.
On the other hand, there were organizations that prefer remote or hybrid work for a long time. However, it has never been that common. Leaving aside the other effects, remote access has an incredible impact on business cybersecurity. Since cybersecurity has been always a handicap for many corporations, they were using legacy security solutions. These solutions were able to meet their security requirements. When companies switch their work models to remote work, legacy solutions no longer provide adequate protection and many companies have fallen victim to cyber-attacks.
Remote access and cybersecurity relation
The most featured impact of remote access on businesses is cybersecurity, which gained importance with SASE framework. It is a fact that remote access makes businesses more vulnerable to cyber dangers. In remote work models, employees should be able to access corporate resources remotely to obtain data or knowledge. They create accounts and use their credentials to access vulnerable company assets remotely. Since passwords and credentials are not safe enough to be sure that the person who tries to access a network is the person that he alleged, remote access to resources has become a deficit for companies.
The other handicap of remote access is cloud systems. Cloud-based environments are quite useful and practical, especially for the remote workforce. Thanks to the cloud storage system, they can access any knowledge or data in seconds regardless of their location or the device that they used. However, security vulnerabilities in cloud systems are significant. If you have a cloud resource in your organization, you must be more attentive and careful regarding cybersecurity.
Using business devices for personal reasons or in the possibility of employees using their own devices for work, company data and resources become more prone to breaches. Public wi-fi is another problem that bothers company security exceedingly. It is quite effortless for cyber criminals to leak public wifis and hack people who use them.
Remote access challenges for businesses
Remote access can be a danger for companies in three ways. The first one is the user factor. Employees, clients, or third-party vendors are one of the main problems of remote access security. If your company does not have sufficient protection regarding user weaknesses, you can not get rid of data breaches, phishing attacks, or other hacking attempts.
Access security has a major effect on user cybersecurity in businesses. If only authorized users can access specific resources in a company, we can say that their cybersecurity is not that weak. In some organizations, users can access any resources, regardless of their job- descriptions or missions. This over-access makes companies’ cybersecurity more vulnerable and open to attack. Most of the data breaches are rooted in this negligence.
Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)
ZTNA embraces the idea that trust less, and verify more. This motto reflects the idea of lesser privileges and exhaustive credential verification in accessing data resources. Zero Trust uses multiple tools and technologies such as two-factor authentication (2FA), multi-factor authentication (MFA), network segmentation, and compliance.
Zero Trust has several benefits for businesses such as cloud access control and security. Since cloud environments thin the security walls of a company, Zero Trust, by implementing extensive authentication and verification methods, lessens the risk of a security breach.
Secondly, ZTNA helps companies to fight against internal security threats. Although many people think that security breaches always come from the outside, inside users can put a company’s security on the line.
VPN (Virtual Private Network)
VPNs are used for securing remote access and providing a robust remote work experience. VPNs create a virtual tunnel to carry data securely. When data is transmitted from resources to end-point via VPN tunnels, the data can be protected and can not be decrypted. In remote work, using VPN is a good idea to level up security and provide sheltered communication.
There are several types of VPNs available such as site-to-site VPNs, mobile VPNs, and remote access VPNs. As the name suggests, remote-access VPNs are preferred by businesses that adopt remote work models. The encrypted tunnel that VPN creates helps companies to mitigate cyber risks and data breaches.
On the other hand, modern businesses require velocity, efficiency, scalability, and capability. It is impossible to meet all these necessities by using the legacy application or network security tools. Besides the promise of protection, an ideal cybersecurity solution must be able to offer other features. Here, VPNs show up and promise cybersecurity without compromising on velocity or scalability.
Last Words
The influence of remote access can be felt more in business life due to cybersecurity issues. Although remote work accelerates the risk of data breaches and cyber attacks, modern security solutions can mitigate the effects of cyber threats and avoid damage. As a company owner or an IT manager, you should not hesitate to adopt remote access cybersecurity solutions to add an extra layer of protection to your business.
