10 Ways to Increase Remote Work Security and Productivity

Remote work presents many opportunities for businesses, but also has its challenges:

• How do you maintain security throughout the business, including remote work security as well as workstation security?
• How do you ensure employees have access to the resources they need to stay productive?

Here are 10 ways to improve your remote work security, maintain workstation security

1. Deploy single sign-on

• Single sign-on gives IT the ability to manage access from one view, all with the flexibility to add or revoke access as needed.
• 90% of businesses say managing user access is very important to the overall security of the organization.¹

2. Add multifactor authentication (MFA)

• MFA adds an additional layer of authentication for increased security and biometrics make the login experience seamless.
• 59% of businesses ranked strengthening user authentication as a top area for IAM improvement.¹

3. Use contextual factors

• Contextual policies can enforce authentication requirements that adapt with the login for greater flexibility and control.
• 60% of organizations see greater organizational security as a result of MFA.¹

4. Lock down your VPN

• Strong passwords and MFA on the VPN increase security to ensure employees are who they say they are before gaining access.
• 80% of data breaches are caused by weak, reused or stolen passwords alone.²

5. Improve workstation security

• MFA improves workstation security by ensuring only legitimate employees can authenticate, even if the workstation is compromised.
• 30% of data breaches involved employee workstations.²

6. Securely Share

• Password sharing helps employees securely share credentials and ensures everyone has access to what they need to get their work done.
• 185 shared folders are used in a business on average.³

7. Reduce passwords

• Passwordless authentication removes the password from the login experience, creating a more streamlined and way to work while you increase security overall.
• 95% of IT security professionals believe their company should better emphasize strong password behavior.¹

8. Tackle shadow IT

• A password manager offers employees a secure location to store all their credentials – the ones IT does and does not know about.
• 77% of employees use a 3rd-party cloud app without the approval or knowledge of IT.⁴

9. 2FA can’t adapt with your users. Prevent phishing schemes

• Password management can help mitigate the risk of phishing by never auto-filling on suspicious sites.
• On average, 26.5% of recipients who were sent a malicious email clicked on a link in the email.⁵

10. Maintain complete insight

• Through detailed reporting, you can monitor activity with insights to make access and authentication adjustments as needed.
• 53% of businesses prioritize monitoring user activity as a key priority for their IAM capabilities.¹

Sources:

1. LastPass SMBs Guide to Modern Identity
2. 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report
3. LastPass State of the Password Report 2019
4. NTT Com, ”Shadow IT Survey”, 2016
5. IBM State of the Phish Research 2019