After working from home for months, a lot more people start working from the office again. Yet many organisations opt for hybrid working. Hybrid working means that you work partly at the office and partly at home or at the location of your choice. This gives everyone the freedom to work where it suits them best. But this freedom comes with risks. Work no longer takes place in a physical place, but from the cloud. All employees use the cloud environment, however from many different networks. Employees can work from all locations and might sometimes use public WIFI. So how do you ensure a safe hybrid work environment for your company? We will provide you with some tips how to safely set up a safe and secure hybrid working environment.
Restrict access to data and applications
When employees are working hybrid, IT departments have less visibility into the devices and networks they work on. Often employees are not aware of the poor security on their devices. So make sure to restrict access. Make sure that employees only have access to the programs and data that they really need. As a result, the chance of a data hostage or other type of hack is much smaller because outside parties can never gain access to the entire cloud environment. Also use Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). As a result, a person must identify themselves during logging in by means of a code on their phone or via e-mail. That makes it a lot more difficult for outside parties to enter your cloud environment.
Educate your employees about online security
Make sure your employees are aware of the dangers of hybrid working. Employees in the office are often protected by the company firewall. This firewall is often not available in people’s homes. You have to make your staff resilient when they work from home. By organising training courses, your employees become acquainted with the online world and especially its dangers. As a result, they will notice much faster when things go wrong and they will probably also better protect their home situation. Because the online environment is changing rapidly, it is important to organise training on a regular basis. More knowledge will lead to more safety.
Make sure to use VPN
If many employees are working hybrid in a company, it is sometimes difficult for managers to keep an overview. Uncertainty can quickly arise about the employee’s work location. Nevertheless, this is of great importance. Location is an important form of identification. If an employee is not clear about the work location, it is easier for a hacker or malicious person to impersonate an employee. It is also highly recommended to let an employee use a VPN. A VPN is a Virtual Private Network. This network makes it impossible for outsiders to see where work is being done and the connection cannot be accessed by malicious parties, which is possible with a (public) WIFI network. So make sure that the supervisor is aware of the location of all employees and use a VPN for protection against hackers.
Prevent shadow IT
The procedures and rules of the workplace are often less well followed in hybrid working. Employees pay less attention to this when they have the idea that no one is checking their activity. That is why it is very important to provide employees who prefer hybrid working with a policy regulation when they are not working in the office. It is important that employees only communicate and work via the cloud of the company. It is therefore not the intention that employees will share data or chat via other platforms such as WhatsApp. As a result, the IT department no longer has any insight into these data flows and shadow IT arises. In other words, the use of applications and software that have not been checked or approved by the company. Shadow IT is often less secure and therefore an easier target for hackers. It is therefore important to prevent these types of data flows.
Cloud computing service by Tech-Wales
At Tech-Wales we are proud to offer you a wide choice of cloud computing services. We can provide you with an excellent flexible and cost effective hybrid cloud computing system which is suitable to set up your organisation for hybrid working. We also proud ourselves in providing excellent customer services and we also offer excellent business IT support. Do not hesitate to contact us today to discuss the hybrid working solutions for your business.