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Remote work is becoming increasingly popular with people looking for more work-life balance, flexibility, and productivity. Not just employees, companies also reported higher productivity and better employee retention rates when shifting to a flexible remote or hybrid setting. Many NYC teams are now investing in professional home office solutions for remote workers to make this shift sustainable and secure.
While this shift is great and serves both employees and companies, industries dominating this space are tech, finance, and healthcare. These fields require exceptional security measures that are completely different from the traditional ones.
Working in an uncontrolled environment, on personal networks and devices, while still having access to company systems, is a major security risk and needs to be mitigated with a new approach.
Human errors account for more than 90% of data breaches since remote/hybrid work setups became popular.
Cyberattacks on remote workers have increased significantly since before the pandemic, with 61% of organizations reporting that their remote workforce has caused a data breach. According to IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the global average cost of a data breach reached $4.88 million, representing a 10% increase from the previous year, the largest yearly jump since the pandemic.
In this guide, we will cover the security challenges remote work poses and how to mitigate each one.
In a traditional work environment, employees use company devices and networks. Companies usually deploy advanced antivirus software on their devices, security teams conduct regular audits, implement strong security policies, and monitor and prevent unauthorized external devices from connecting.
In a remote work setting, these controls become difficult to implement, especially if the company allows the use of personal devices.
Employees might use weak or repetitive passwords, skip MFA verification, and mix company and personal data on the same device, all of which create security vulnerabilities.
While some security threats like shadow IT, lack of enterprise-level security systems, untrained staff, and poor security policies affect both traditional and remote settings, remote work introduces additional unique risks that require specific attention.
Here are the main security challenges remote and hybrid workforces face:
Personal networks are more vulnerable to cyber attacks, leaving your devices vulnerable to data theft, man-in-the-middle attacks, and unauthorized access, due to outdated firmware, weak or default passwords, and a lack of encryption.
This is why many businesses now require employees to use secure home network & WiFi setups designed and maintained by IT professionals instead of relying on default router settings.
Personal devices carry similar risks with even more vulnerabilities, like using similar weak passwords on multiple sites and devices, skipping MFA, and the lack of antivirus or protection software. not to mention the lack of backup systems, meaning ransomware can permanently destroy your data without any means of retrieval.
Now we understand the risks, here is how we can minimize them:
Remote workers might find it easier to use other tools to get their job done with less time and energy, so they turn to external AI tools or software without IT approval. This means giving company data to unauthorized third parties and increasing the risks of data theft and breaches.
The IT team has no visibility into these tools, so they can’t monitor for security issues, enforce access controls, or ensure data is being handled properly.
Phishing attacks are one of the most common attacks targeting remote employees. Human errors play a crucial role in the success of these attacks, such as visiting shady sites and clicking on insecure emails and links. Hackers exploit these weaknesses by sending fake emails and links that look legit but aim to trick users into giving their credentials or injecting malware into the system.
Even a cautious employee can fall victim to such attacks since they’ve become more sophisticated. These attacks use your company’s branding, reference real projects you’re working on, and create urgency to make you act without thinking.
Remote employees are an easy target for such attacks since their settings have less secure measures implemented than a traditional office environment. Hackers exploit these security gaps to launch attacks, inject malware to steal data, hold data for ransom, and even launch much bigger attacks targeting the company’s network through these compromised endpoints.
When your team works from different locations, keeping up with compliance gets complicated. Each location has different data protection laws, like GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California, or HIPAA for healthcare data. You need to make sure your remote workers follow these regulations no matter where they’re working from.
While these are all legit security risks that come with remote work, security solutions have progressed to address these challenges. AI integration into these solutions is another step forward as well. Below, we’ll discuss each one in further detail.
Set clear security policies, make it a part of the onboarding process, and keep these policies updated and accessible to all employees all the time.
Policies alone are not enough; turning them into a culture is a better move when everyone understands how important security is, and when the employee understands these policies and their consequences, then they can act responsibly and maintain a secure environment.
Having clear incident reporting procedures, with fair treatment, helps employees report any incidents as soon as they happe,n which could save the company a lot of money, prevent further damage, and contain breaches before they spread across the entire network.
Now let’s move to the actionable steps you can take to further enforce your security policies:
You need to decide whether employees use their personal devices for work (BYOD – Bring Your Own Device) or stick to company-owned equipment. BYOD offers flexibility and saves money, but the company has zero control over it.
Company-owned devices give you full control over security settings, software installations, and the ability to remotely wipe data if the device is lost or the employee leaves.
Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions help manage both scenarios by letting IT teams enforce security policies, push updates, monitor devices, and remotely lock or wipe them if needed.
For most small and mid-sized organizations, this is handled by a Managed IT Services (MSP) partner in New York that can manage MDM, updates, and security policies across all remote devices.
Data classification is the way you sort your data on a sensitivity scale, and give access accordingly, that include public, internal, sensitive/confidential, and highly confidential data.
Handling includes how to store, transfer, and encrypt this data, and for how long you retain it.
Setting clear practices for both classification and handling gives you an extra layer of protection, reduces containment efforts in case of breach, and improves your data management.
Endpoints are devices like phones, laptops, and IoT devices that connect and communicate with a network.
These endpoints, as we mentioned, could be entry points for cybercriminals to gain access to corporate data and cause different security breaches.
In remote work environments, it becomes mandatory to protect these endpoints with comprehensive security & protection services for New York businesses that combine EDR, antivirus, firewall, and monitoring.
Endpoint protection solutions started as basic antivirus and have since evolved to proactive, cloud-based, AI-integrated, and behavioral analysis-powered solutions designed to detect and prevent threats before they even happen.
Modern endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems work by continuously monitoring all activities on your devices. They don’t just scan for known viruses; they watch for suspicious behavior patterns like unusual file access, unauthorized network connections, or attempts to disable security features. When they spot something off, they can automatically isolate the device from your network, block the threat, and alert your security team.
Moreover, almost all of these solutions use or offer centralized management, which means updates, security policies, and role-based access are pushed automatically by the security team, keeping every remote device monitored and secure no matter where employees are working from.
VPN creates an encrypted tunnel between your device and the company’s network. When you send data, the VPN encrypts it first, routes it through a secure server, and then delivers it to its destination.
This means even if you’re working from a coffee shop on public WiFi, hackers can’t intercept or read your data because it’s fully encrypted the entire time.
Yet it is important that every employee use a company-approved VPN provider, the security risks are increased rather than decreased.
ZTNA is a more secure alternative to VPNs. It gives access only to verified users; verification here depends strictly on the user’s device and identity, not the user’s location. This access is not absolute either; you only get access to what you specifically need.
ZTNA also reduces the attack surface by hiding apps from unauthorized users. If you’re unauthorized to access an app, you don’t even need to know it exists, which reduces attack probability.
Use VPN if you need quick, affordable security for a small team accessing on-premise systems. And use ZTNA if you’re handling sensitive data, have a large remote workforce, or run mostly on cloud applications, as it gives you tighter access management. Many companies start with VPN, then move to ZTNA as they grow, or run both during the transition.
Beyond managing devices, you also need proper access management and deprovisioning processes for users. This means a set of policies, processes, and technologies that identify users and control their access to systems and data.
Below are set of tools that help you with proper access management:
MFA is an extra layer of protection for approved users. Once the user enters their credentials, they need to verify their identity one more time. This is usually done through a mobile app (should be authorized by the company), email, or SMS.
SSO is an authentication method that lets verified users log into multiple applications using one set of credentials. It might sound counterintuitive, but it actually enhances security through token-based authentication and reduces password redundancy. Instead of managing dozens of passwords across different platforms, employees use one strong password for all company apps, which reduces weak password creation and gives IT teams centralized access control.
RBAC assigns access permissions based on the employee’s role in the company.
it limits access to only what’s needed for each role, which reduces the damage if an account gets compromised. When someone changes roles or leaves, you adjust their role assignment instead of manually changing permissions across multiple systems.
Cloud security refers to the practices that aim to keep your data and applications in the cloud secure from unauthorized access, breaches, and data loss.
And that can be achieved through:
CASB sits between your employees and cloud applications to monitor activity and enforce security policies. It monitors access, blocks unauthorized apps (shadow IT), and alerts you when someone tries to share sensitive data outside the company. Think of it as a security checkpoint for all your cloud services.
Use company-approved cloud storage solutions with built-in encryption, access controls, and audit logs. Set permissions so employees can only share files with authorized people, and make sure all data is encrypted both when it’s stored and when it’s being transferred.
DLP tools scan your cloud data to identify sensitive information like credit card numbers, social security numbers, or confidential documents. They automatically block employees from sharing this data externally, uploading it to unauthorized apps, or sending it to personal email accounts.
Securing communication is a crucial part of your overall security measures, and it often gets ignored or taken lightly. Every message, email, or video call is a potential entry point for hackers if not properly protected.
The following practices give you a more secure communication:
Use company-approved encrypted messaging apps like Microsoft Teams, Slack, or Signal for work conversations.
Avoid using personal WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or SMS for sharing sensitive work information.
Use secure video conferencing platforms like Zoom (with proper security settings), Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet for meetings. Enable waiting rooms, set passwords for meetings, and don’t share meeting links publicly.
Train employees to spot phishing emails by looking for red flags like urgent requests for credentials, suspicious sender addresses, or unexpected attachments. Use email security tools that filter out spam and malicious emails before they reach inboxes, and set up email authentication protocols to prevent email spoofing.
Remote work opens up massive opportunities for both companies and their employees, but it definitely brings security challenges along with it. That shouldn’t stop you from embracing this shift; it just means you need the right security setup to protect your business while giving your team the flexibility they want.
Security is not a one-time job; it’s an ongoing process. Keep your policies updated, train your employees regularly, and stay on top of new threats as they emerge. The investment you make in securing your remote workforce today will save you from much higher costs down the road.
If you want help designing this setup, you can speak with our Brooklyn-based IT team about securing your remote and hybrid workforce and get a tailored security plan.
Is working from home safe for companies?
Working from home can be safe if you implement proper security measures. The risks are real – 61% of organizations reported their remote workforce caused a data breach, and breaches now cost an average of $4.88 million. But with the right setup, proper security policies, and employee training, you can make remote work as secure as office work.
Do I need a VPN for remote work?
Yes, you should use a VPN for remote work, especially if you’re accessing company systems from home or public WiFi. VPN creates an encrypted tunnel that protects your data from being intercepted by hackers, even on unsecured networks. However, make sure you use a company-approved VPN provider, not a random free one. Some companies are moving to ZTNA instead, which is more secure because it verifies your identity every time and only gives access to specific apps you need rather than the entire network.
What security software do remote workers need?
Remote workers need endpoint protection software that goes beyond basic antivirus. Modern solutions use AI to detect suspicious behavior, not just known viruses. You also need a VPN or ZTNA for secure connections, MFA enabled on all accounts, company-approved encrypted messaging and video tools, email security that filters phishing attempts, and proper device encryption. If you’re using personal devices, your company should use MDM software to enforce security policies and push updates automatically.
Can companies monitor my personal computer for remote work?
If you’re using your personal computer for work (BYOD), companies can monitor it to some extent through MDM software, which tracks security compliance and can remotely wipe work data if needed. However, proper MDM solutions separate work and personal data, so they’re only monitoring and controlling the work side. If you want complete privacy, ask your company for a dedicated work device instead of mixing personal and work activities on the same computer.
