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Remote access (2003)
Effective security practices need to be in place to cope with the worldwide increase in teleworking.We look at some of the solutions. By Jayne Parkhouse
The ability to connect remotely to the company local area network (LAN) as employees are encouraged to work out of the office and participate in the world of telecommuting has become a growing requirement. This necessitates the inevitable access rights and privileges for communication with the network, and increases the - demand on the IT department to provide secure, fast and practical connections between the home - office, branch office and company headquarters.
Tried and tested techniques
With remote access definitely on the increase, Gartner estimates up to 72 percent of medium to large European businesses already have employees engaged in this practice. Until recently it was the U.S. that led the way towards teleworking. Now it seems that trend has spread across the pond, and the number of people working remotely within Western Europe is set to increase to more than 18 million by the end of 2005. But if you are already one of the 12 million presently using remote access across Europe there are lessons to be learnt and firm security decisions to be made. The good news is that because the U.S. has already been using and developing the necessary technologies, Europe will benefit from all that has been tried, tested and tweaked.
Realizing that simply opening up your network to users on the move can lead to the loss of data, hacker attacks and other security vulnerabilities will put you in good stead for the future. It should lead to a proper structure being implemented at the outset to avoid these pitfalls. Remote access solutions are plentiful and it is down to the size of your organization, the type of security architecture you employ and the ease with which you want users to be able to dial in.
Some companies are happy to deploy a virtual private network (VPN) and be done with it, but there are a lot of other considerations to be taken into account. How will your users access and authenticate securely? Will they be able to access the whole network or will you use a specific security policy to restrict remote activities?
You need to know where users will access your systems from in order to implement effective security practices. If it is from their home PC then you should know who else has access to it, if it is password protected and how 'work in progress' is to be secured, otherwise you may as well not bother to implement any security at all.
You will need to designate places that your authorized remote workers should never use - - including - internet cafés. These pose a significant security risk, as information may be stored on the café's computers and this could be used to gain access by an unauthorized person after your employee has logged out and left the café.
The risks and the dangers
There is also the risk of using a borrowed computer that has keystroke collection software or some other application that would record all the required information and enable a copycat access request from an unauthorized user. Then there is the potential for programs that infect a user's hard drive and can potentially email out passwords and PIN numbers.
Therefore, authentication technology that alleviates this security vulnerability needs to be evaluated prior to delivering a remote access route for your users, whether customers, employees or partners who need to gain access to your systems from outside remote sites.
Remote connections between a branch office and the head office may not pose the same risks as your travelling employees, but they still warrant secure authentication and the encryption of data to protect network integrity. In fact this comes with its own agenda so again security policies need to be in place and adhered to.
Selecting the right option
The cost has to be offset against the need. With complicated systems, adding users and ensuring secure lines means extra burdens being placed on your administrators' shoulders. Therefore, when you are looking at the need for remote access, how you implement it will depend on the benefit to the business in relation to the cost of setting it up and maintaining it.
The variety of solutions available allow for good security practices within your set criteria, and delivery of a system that can be easily maintained. It should also be scalable. Access privileges should be easily maintained, with authentication that is both secure and user friendly. But, just as important as being able to grant rights is the ability to negate them when they are no longer needed, thus closing a potential weak spot in your defenses.
As with all security, if it doesn't do the job seamlessly or causes continued user problems, it won't work. But the answer is clear - keep your plans simple, your systems user friendly and continue to train your employees in best security practices.
In this month's Group Test covering remote access solutions, we take a look at a variety of products that provide both the security and the access required to enable off-site access rights to a variety of users. This involves both hardware and software solutions, which for some may simply be a matter of preference. Of course it wouldn't be fair to simply lump them all together so on this occasion we have split the software and hardware solutions into two separate sections.
Both sections are reviewed with the same end result in mind, and each solution was viewed from both the corporate and user perspectives before the final marks were awarded. We hope you will find the solution that you have been looking for in a remote access solution.
