How to Keep Your Remote Workers and Enterprise Secure

How to Keep Your Remote Workers and Enterprise Secure

Predictions showcased that forward-thinking institutions would support remote workers worldwide to obtain the best talent, allowing staff to work on the devices of their choice. Doing so could maximize productivity by conducting meetings through video collaboration tools rather than traveling and impacting the environment.

However, no one could expect to find organizations in the positions they are now. Many businesses are suddenly supporting their entire workforce remotely and through collaboration platforms. These are often chosen because of existing IT ecosystems or to facilitate video meetings with clients (which are being tested to their limits).

Compromised Personal Data & Information

Due to the near-universal shift to working remotely, businesses are experiences, high-profile news stories highlight security flaws. These stories call into question what companies are doing with the personal data and information they collect and some critical outages and downtime that have affected many users.

IT departments should be asking for some basic requirements if they are looking to deploy a new collaboration platform and some tips on approaching either changing or upgrading their collaboration environment remotely.

Tips for IT Departments

It is critical not to rush into a quick collaboration platform purchase, even if there is limited time to support remote workers of varying IT competency levels. Many collaboration platforms offer basic applications for free, and for some, that may be a good solution. However, it is crucial to consider your enterprise’s requirements before opting for a selection. Below is a list of questions organizations should be asking to find the best secure collaboration platform:

What platforms do your clients, partners, investors, or suppliers use?
Choose a platform that can be used together with the other various video conferencing systems your users will try to connect to.

What are your employees’ familiar workflows and their familiarity with various programs?
Investing in a feature-rich platform (but one that is unfamiliar or difficult for new users) leads to low user adoption, threatens your security, resulting in a low ROI.

Will this solution work on the various types of devices and operating systems our users will have at home?
Ensure our solution supports multiple devices and if users need mobile support. Most do but be on the lookout for what the software or plugin requirements are.

How do I keep my users secure or trust them to keep themselves safe?
First, check the critical security credentials of the platforms you are considering. Do they provide end-to-end AES encryption? Ask to see their GDPR and Data privacy policies. Organizations should be provided adequate explanations of:

• How is data protected—at rest and in transit?
• Where is the data held?
• What 3rd parties have access to the data?
• How long is the data kept?
• Is data ever sold or transferred?

Check policies for disclosing data breaches and if they push regular security updates. Additionally, it’s an excellent baseline to remind your users of basic rules of online securities such as secure passwords, using VPN, etc.

What happens when staff return to the office?

It’s hard to see far into the future, but when an organization decides to return to the office and the new cloud-based collaboration platform you’ve subscribed to for another year comes with you, make sure you consider the following questions before adopting a new platform:

• How will it work with your existing meeting rooms & legacy hardware?
• Is the platform scalable for those use cases?
• How will you support it going forward when it becomes the de-facto platform for your boardroom meetings?

Conclusion

Technology is ahead of the game—it’s people that have to update their processes to adapt to this new way of working. There are many excellent platform choices on the market. New Era Technology can help you choose the right solution and design and deploy (remotely if needed) while supporting you in the level your organization desires.

To learn more about how New Era can assist you for keeping remote workers and your enterprise secure,  please email us at solutions@neweratech.com.