The Coronavirus pandemic has prompted numerous organizations to consider alternate workplaces for employees, in line with recommendations from the World Health Organization. Now the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is issuing a similar alert, complete with recommendations for employers and teleworking staff.
CISA’s notice has been online for almost a week, yet few (if any) news outlets have caught wind of it – hardly a surprise, considering the wave of alarming headlines arriving in everyone’s RSS feed by the minute. Regardless, CISA’s alert is as good as any, especially for businesses obliged to send employees home and hope productivity isn’t hampered.
CISA acknowledges that, “remote work options—or telework—require an enterprise virtual private network (VPN) solution to connect employees to an organization’s information technology (IT) network. As organizations elect to implement telework, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) encourages organizations to adopt a heightened state of cybersecurity.”
The reason behind the agency’s warning is that, as organizations ramp up the use of VPNs for telework, more vulnerabilities are cropping up in VPN clients – flaws that are actively targeted by malicious cyber actors, according to the notice.
The agency expresses further concern that organizations are unlikely to patch their VPN clients very quickly, because they’re required to work 24/7. The woes don’t stop here.
“Organizations may have a limited number of VPN connections, after which point no other employee can telework. With decreased availability, critical business operations may suffer, including IT security personnel’s ability to perform cybersecurity tasks,” the group says.
Finally, CISA offers a few recommendations for businesses relying on remote workers (reproduced from the alert):
Bitdefender also offers pro tips for remote workers themselves in this handy guide.
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Filip is an experienced writer with over a decade of practice in the technology realm. He has covered a wide range of topics in such industries as gaming, software, hardware and cyber-security, and has worked in various B2B and B2C marketing roles. Filip currently serves as Information Security Analyst with Bitdefender.
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