Five WAH tips to keep your team and your data safe and compliant

If your members are still working at home now and for the foreseeable future, how do you plan to keep your data safe, secure, and regulatory-compliant?

Patrina’s compliance solutions have got you covered on items one, two, and three. But what about all the other risks, exposures, and operator errors and omissions? How do you protect your company from hacks, data breaches, phishing expeditions, and the inevitable Urkel misstep (“Did I do that?”)?

Many companies are planning to work-at-home through the New Year, many in this new normal, remote work environment are more likely to be thinking about how to stay in touch with colleagues and clients using conference calls, video conferencing, chat apps, and shared documents than security. They want to get the job done, effectively and efficiently. But this means compliance professionals and chief information security officers like you must now examine their newly distributed workforce for new threat vectors.

How do you minimize cybersecurity risk?

1. Turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all your members. How secure is your employees’ work-at-home any time, not just during COVID-19? According to Microsoft experts, the single best tactic to improve security for WAH employees is to turn on MFA. It’s a pain in the neck that you will appreciate should something unfortunate occur. If you do not already have this option in place, make it a priority, and make sure your IT support team is available to help when employees inevitably get locked out.

• Do not assume that all networks are secure. Do not assume all your employees working from home are working remotely. Invest in a program that permits you to track and audit access and usage so you can determine what authorized person is doing what and when.

• Know that bad actors will continue to act badly. Remote workers will be accessing data, information and your network – tempting fruit to bad actors. Make sure employees know to expect more phishing expeditions, executive impersonations, and grabs for critical credentials. Remote workers have access to data, information, and your network. This increases the temptation for bad actors. Warn your employees to expect more phishing attempts, “urgent requests” that require breaking stated company policies, use compelling and emotional appeals, or “look” perfect but are not quite. Make sure they know where to report potential spoofs.

• Prohibit downloading and using consumer or free VPNs. Instead, make it easier for your employees to protect their devices by leveraging your VPN and ensuring it’s routed through a secure VPN connection.

• Update malware/virus protections. Make sure your employees update their devices as a condition of accessing your corporate networks. Make sure they know who they may find their access blocked.

The best compliance defense is great compliance offense

The pandemic accelerated what was already a fast-moving trend – the work-from-home workforce. But now that it’s here and likely to be the “new normal” going forward, keeping your teams compliant requires faster pivots to develop compliance solutions that previously were considered too far “outside-the-box.” But here we are. And, there is no question that pandemic or no, bad actors will continue to sidestep compliance or neglect it altogether. That’s where Patrina comes in. For more than 25 years, Patrina has been helping compliance professionals like you stay on the “straight and narrow” efficiently and cost-effectively. So, let’s talk. Call 212-233-1155 to ask about Patrina’s cost-effective designated third-party services, our comprehensive 8-module compliance solution, and compliant data capture & file storage, and records archiving specifically designed for the financial services community. Be smart. Be covered.Let’s talk.