The shift to hybrid and remote work has dramatically expanded the traditional office perimeter. Employees now access critical systems and data daily from home networks and devices. While remote connectivity enables new levels of workforce mobility, it also significantly enlarges the attack surface. Organizations must strike the right balance between security and user experience when enabling access outside the network edge.
Evolve Beyond VPNs
Virtual private networks were an early remote access technology, creating encrypted tunnels from devices through the internet to internal networks. However, VPNs grant excessive access that puts networks at risk if devices are compromised.
Zero trust network access (ZTNA) models take a more granular approach to remote access. Context-aware ZTNA aligns connectivity to specific users, devices, and apps to limit exposure. According to the good folk at Hillstone Networks, this reduces attack paths.
Enforce Least Privilege Access
Many remote access technologies provide “all or nothing” network access. Once connected, devices have wide visibility into systems and data. Least privilege access allows only authorized connectivity to specific resources needed for a user’s role.
Implement Robust Identity Management
Foundational to least privilege access is knowing exactly who is attempting to connect. Enterprise identity and access management provides authoritative user identities and attributes to assess against remote access requests.
Assess User and Device Risk
Contextual variables beyond identity determine remote access decisions. User risk assessment examines activity patterns to identify anomalous behavior that warrants access restrictions or additional verification. Device risk assessment checks antivirus, encryption, patching, and configuration status before permitting connectivity.
Automate Secure Connectivity
Manual remote access processes like activating VPN connections lead to negative user experiences that hamper productivity. Automating connectivity based on user, device and context attributes simplifies access.
Protect Access Pathways
While hardening individual user endpoints is important, securing the remote connection pathways further reduces risk. ZTNA encapsulates traffic in encrypted, non-internet routable tunnels separate from the public internet. This minimizes the attack surface by isolating access.
Limit Visibility and Access
Segmenting access prevents users from accessing any network firewalls or system resources, intentionally or inadvertently. For example, cloud-based virtual applications eliminate visibility into underlying infrastructure. Micro segmentation further isolates application access.
Rethink the Trust Model
VPN connections inherently connect back to the corporate network, where access was historically trusted. The zero trust approach assumes no implicit trust once inside.
Micro segmentation, least privilege and enhanced lateral movement protections build on zero trust principles. This ensures critical resources stay secured regardless of initial access mechanisms.
Log and Inspect All Activity
Comprehensive logging provides visibility into remote users’ activity which is increasingly off-network. DLP and advanced threat analytics inspect flows to detect abnormal behavior indicative of compromise like unusual upload volumes.
Pervasive logging and analysis are foundational for zero trust architectures to prove trustworthiness on every access attempt and ensure suspicious activities trigger alerts.
Simplify the User Experience
Smooth, self-service remote access improves adoption and compliance. Employees should be equipped with tools, guidance, and support resources to access authorized resources from anywhere in a seamless manner.
Enable Fast, Secure Collaboration
Remote users rely on cloud-based tools for communications, content sharing and collaboration. However, data leakage can result from poor access controls.
Integrations and single sign-on streamline access to sanctioned tools. DLP, encryption and rights management provide data-centric protections around these tools.
Conclusion
The expansion of hybrid and remote work makes balancing air tight security without impacting productivity an intricate challenge. Evolving remote access models beyond legacy VPNs and aligning modern ZTNA, zero trust and UX best practices means organizations can achieve this equilibrium. In today’s enterprise, the optimal solution must seamlessly and securely connect authorized users and devices to only necessary resources.
