We’ve heard a lot about the drastic measures that organizations in North America and Western Europe are taking to protect their employees against the coronavirus. But as we all know, COVID-19 is a global pandemic. Organizations all over the world now find themselves in a position where they need to take action on their policies and procedures.

Take the Middle East, for instance. On March 11, CNBC reported that Google told all of its employees in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to work from home until further notice. This was just a few days before Arab News covered the decision of many Middle Eastern governments to ask that their employees begin working from home.

These decisions will certainly help protect the physical health of those Middle Eastern entities. Unfortunately, they also carry the unforeseen challenge of securing these newly remote workers. They need to take action because attackers are taking advantage of the fact that many people who are newly working from home have not applied the same security on their networks that would be in place in a corporate environment. They’re also targeting enterprises that haven’t deployed the right technologies or corporate security policies to ensure that all corporate-owned or corporate-managed devices have exactly the same security protections regardless of whether they’re connected to an enterprise network or an open home WiFi network.

Let’s examine some ways that your organization can counter these risks posed by attackers.

Serious Considerations for Remote Working

Individual users must be empowered to follow the guidance provided to them by organizations and respond by taking preventative measures. To that end, organizations need to make sure that employees’ laptops that are connected to the corporate infrastructure are hardened and following foundational security hygiene practices. These include implementing security controls found in (Read more...)