Remote and hybrid work is here to stay, but many Central Florida businesses are still running the same quick-fix security setup they threw together during 2020. Personal devices connecting to business systems without proper controls. Home Wi-Fi networks with default passwords. Cloud accounts protected by nothing more than a simple password.
The Home Office Attack Surface
When your employees work from home, your security perimeter extends to every home network, personal device, and family member who shares that network. Your employee’s teenager downloading pirated software on the same Wi-Fi can introduce malware that reaches your business files.
The most common remote work vulnerabilities we find during security assessments: unsecured home Wi-Fi (default router passwords), personal devices without endpoint protection, cloud accounts without MFA, sensitive files stored locally on personal laptops, and employees using the same password across personal and work accounts.
Building a Secure Remote Work Environment
Company-managed devices: Whenever possible, provide company-owned laptops with your security tools pre-installed. This gives you control over endpoint protection, patching, encryption, and device management. If employees must use personal devices, require them to install your approved EDR software and comply with your security policies.
Business VPN: All remote access to company resources should go through an encrypted VPN tunnel. This protects data in transit regardless of the employee’s home network security. Configure the VPN to require MFA for every connection. For businesses using Microsoft 365, consider Azure AD Application Proxy as an alternative that eliminates the need for traditional VPN infrastructure while still securing access.
Cloud security configuration: If your team uses Microsoft 365, configure conditional access policies that restrict logins from unknown devices or locations. Enable session timeouts so unattended devices don’t remain logged in indefinitely. Use sensitivity labels to prevent sensitive documents from being downloaded to unmanaged devices.
Home network basics: At minimum, require employees to change their router’s default admin password, enable WPA3 (or WPA2-AES) encryption, and keep router firmware updated. For employees handling sensitive data like healthcare records or financial information, consider providing a dedicated work router that creates a separate network segment from their personal devices.
Remote Work Security Policies That Actually Work
Security policies for remote workers need to be specific and enforceable, not generic guidelines that nobody reads. The policies that make the biggest difference:
Prohibit the use of public Wi-Fi without a VPN. Mandate that work files stay in company cloud storage, not on local drives or personal Dropbox accounts. Require screen locks with a maximum 5-minute timeout. Ban the use of personal email for anything work-related.
Run quarterly phishing simulations that test remote workers specifically. Remote employees are 3x more likely to click phishing links than office workers because they lack the informal “hey, did you get this weird email too?” conversations that happen naturally in an office.
Monitoring and Incident Response
You can’t secure what you can’t see. Implement monitoring that covers remote endpoints, cloud application activity, and VPN connections. Unusual patterns like a login from two different cities within an hour, or a bulk file download at 3 AM should trigger immediate investigation.
Your incident response plan needs a remote work chapter. How do you isolate a compromised remote device? The answer is remote wipe capability through your device management platform. How does the employee report a suspected breach when they’re not in the office? Make sure every remote worker knows the emergency contact procedure and has it written down somewhere they can access even if their computer is compromised.
