Five tactical steps for every company in our new hybrid work environment

1. Educate your workforce and manufacture a culture of security

If the constant battle within the cybersecurity space has taught us one thing it is that all security measure can be overcome with a little human creativity.

While it’s more comforting to think of that as a purely external reality, there are plenty of people within a given company who knowingly circumvent security due to frustration or in the name of efficiency. However, just as they can be a liability, people can be the strongest link in any defense. The creativity used to side-step measures can also be used to support them. With over half of your workforce working off-campus it is critical to win them over to your side.

If you aren’t doing it already, actively expand employee cybersecurity awareness and empowerment. Key elements to focus on include the importance of adopting security-centric practices such as learning to identify phishing attacks, strong password policies, and keeping software up to date. Cybersecurity training cannot be a once-a-year and compliance-based. These trainings are generally disliked because they are typically some combination of boring, long, and overly obvious.

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Regular, engaging communications create and reinforce culture.

Make someone chuckle in the midst of their day and they will likely engage with the next communication, even if it is about new security protocols.

Memes abound to make this straightforward but thinking about the needs of the recipient will also achieve this goal. Rather than sending a matter-of-fact communication that the password policy has changed, send an email asking, “How many passwords have your forgotten in the last month?” and advertise three password wallets that will make the headache of managing passwords vanish from their personal life as well. As a tech-savvy group, it is easy for IT and Security professionals to project their competence on the rest of the company when it’s reasonable to guess the majority of the company doesn’t even know about password wallets.

Another strong avenue for building culture is gamification. Running practice phishing campaigns and displaying the results in a humorous way, like “Top offender” or “Phishing catch of the day” is an excellent way to associate a security-positive mindset with humor and fun.

When building culture, creativity is key.

2. Implement MFA as an important steptowards Zero Trust

Business continuity now requires the bulk of employees to access critical data, wherever, whenever, and on whatever device they have handy at the moment.

Relying traditional means of user verification, i.e. username and password, is risky given that phishing and credential theft are still the top form of social-driven breaches. Research shows that 80% of breaches are linked to stolen credentials and the sophistication of phishing attacks has dramatically increased now that the majority of the workforce is not working behind corporate security perimeters.

This is why multi-factor authentication (MFA), a critical part of a broader zero-trust strategy, is important in this new paradigm. MFA effectively verifies the identity of the individual using credentials to access company information by using a step-up or stronger form of validation before allowing access to corporate resources. In the event that bad actors were to get credentials from spoofing a home network or personal device, the actors would fail to verify the identity and the attack would stop before it began.

As part of a broader zero-trust strategy, MFA delivers better visibility across users, devices, containers, networks, and applications and greatly reduces an organization’s attack surface by granting the minimum access needed for perform a given task.

Zero Trust is a strategic approach to security that eliminates all trust from an organization’s network architecture.

Unlike the traditional security paradigm, trust is neither binary nor permanent in Zero Trust and individuals need to re-verify trust before access is grants in certain circumstances.

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Multi-Factor Authentication from Cisco Secure Access by Duo (Formerly Duo) is designed for the modern workforce and backed by zero-trust philosophy.

It protects applications using a second source of validation to verify identity before access is granted. Duo’s authentication application is user-friendly, scalable access security that ensures your remote employees get the data they need while keeping your business ahead of ever-changing security threats. Deployment can be done in a matter of days and is fast and easy for users to set up on both managed and non-managed devices. With intuitive administrator dashboards, detailed reporting is always available, and management is simple.

Want multi-factor authentication that’s powerful and easy to use? Get Secure Access by Duo today and increase the security of your remote workers without adding any burden to their workload.

“We need to ensure the highest level of protection for all user interactions with our services. We also need to meet an extremely high bar for security standards while making it easy for users to be productive. Duo helps us do just that.”
our quote here…

— Mark SchooleySenior Director, IT Operations & Engineeringhttps://duo.com/solutions/customer-stories/box

3. Build security into the way users access information, leveraging the cloud whenever possible

A distributed workforce requires dynamic security.

If you aren’t already, leverage security tools that bring users in to your on-premises security and/or move security out to the user with the cloud. We recommend all companies consider using a VPN to bring on-premises security to the users and, while using this technology, consider a SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) approach to secure application access and maintain environment safely wherever your users are working. SASE is a new network architecture based on cloud-native capabilities that simplify the IT environment while improving security and enabling dynamic scalability.

Implementing a VPN provides an encrypted tunnel between users and applications so workers can stay productive without putting the business at risk. VPN technology prevents unauthorized people from eavesdropping traffic and is widely used in corporate environments.

Cisco AnyConnect empowers remote workers with frictionless, secure access to the enterprise network from any device, at any time, in any location. While it does encrypt traffic, AnyConnect provides additional security features and controls than your average VPN. Through AnyConnect, administrators are able to control which resources are available to remote workers, perform posture checks and remediation, push updates, enable web security features to protect against malware, and monitor endpoint application usages to uncover potential anomalies and make more informed network design decisions.

All these modules work to ensure remote users are secured in a consistent manner with those who are on-premises and integrate seamlessly with other Cisco Secure solutions.

Additionally, AnyConnect can be set up in a device-based or per-application VPN to facilitate BYOD situations while eliminating the risk of unapproved applications accessing confidential business resources.

“Cisco AnyConnect is a good option if you have a considerable amount of users working from outside the office - may it be at home, on the customer side or a shared workplace."

— Gabriel KrahnECM Consultant, T-Systems

The AnyConnect client has recently grown to cover over 100 million devices.

Click here to learn more about AnyConnect

Want to join the revolution of secure access everywhere?

Learn more about SASE

Contact a SASE Expert

SASE represents a new vision for remote security, bringing VPN, WAN, web gateway, CASB, cloud firewall, endpoint controls and elements of zero trust in a single, integrated cloud service. While it represents a vision for the future that vendors are working to achieve, this functionality is not yet a reality as a single solution.

Cisco is able to deliver on the promise of SASE with our Umbrella, Secure Access by Duo, Cisco Secure Firewall Meraki, and Secure Endpoint solutions, unified through our platform, SecureX. These solutions deliver high performance and lead their respective markets with a simplified customer experience through the product lifecycle – from initial deployment to configuration and ongoing management tasks. SecureX, our built-in security platform aggregates data from across the Cisco security portfolio and third-party data and automated response actions to further simplify the daily tasks of your security analysts and improve response time.

This experience means moving security out to remote workers using the cloud. Umbrella cloud security protects users on a variety of devices, no matter their location. Umbrella enforces security at the DNS layer and IP layer to block malware, ransomware, phishing campaigns and botnets, before they reach devices or the network. It also logs all web traffic from remote devices, inspecting encrypted traffic and enabling control browsing, analyze files.

Ready to simplify securing remote workers with cloud-delivered protection? Try it for free.

4. Secure Office365 email against advanced threats

Email still remains the #1 attack vector for businesses and Office 365 email presents an attack surface that is just too big for bad actors to ignore.

Moving email to the cloud provides convenience and scalability, but it also brings an increased risk of account takeovers and malware. With more than 258 million active users per month, attackers can use the breadth of the O365 user base to move laterally within an organization and carry out command-and-control communications as well as other malicious activities. With so many users now operating from home, this exploitable population is more available than ever.

With Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox Defense, you can supplement native security measures in Microsoft cloud platform. Cloud Mailbox Defense is fully integrated with Office 365 and delivers complete visibility in to inbound, outbound, and internal messages. Current gaps in the native security – like detecting and blocking advanced threats – are covered by superior threat intelligence from Cisco Talos. There are no required changes to mail flow or added administrative overhead. The configuration is minimal, only taking about 5 minutes. The modern, open APIs built into Secure Email Cloud Mailbox defense allow flexible integration into your existing email, security, and incident response operations.

Beyond Cloud Mailbox Defense, Cisco provides comprehensive email security across cloud, virtual, on-premises or hybrid environments – delivering advanced threat protection capabilities to detect, block, and remediate threats faster, prevent data loss, and secure important information in transit with end-to-end encryption.

To learn more about Cloud Mailbox Defense, visit Cisco.com

If you’re interested in a 30-day free trial, click here

To learn more about our comprehensive Secure Email solution, read the datasheet at Cisco.com

5. Maintain a first and last line of defense with DNS and Endpoint security

The average organization is still concerned about cloud security. Add to that the rising number of attacks that target the endpoint, and it's clear to see that having a first line of defense at the DNS layer, and a last line of defense at the endpoint for threats that slip through - is an imperative.

The first layer blocks domains associated with malicious behavior before they get into your network, while the last layer protects against more advanced threats.

As discussed previously, Cisco Umbrella enforces security at the DNS layer and IP layer to block malware, ransomware, phishing campaigns and botnets, before they reach devices or the network. Umbrella logs all web traffic from remote devices, inspecting encrypted traffic and enabling control browsing, analyze files. Umbrella makes it easy to set rules across all users as well control which types of applications people can access. These controls make securing remote workers very simple and, because it’s all in the cloud, you can scale up and down as your needs change or add functionality as you go.

Cisco Secure Endpoint (Formerly AMP for Endpoints) provides a robust last line of defense for users.

Secure Endpoint extends visibility to all individual endpoints, so it’s easy to check systems’ statuses like OS versions, software vulnerabilities, and recent patches to assess risk exposure even if employees haven’t been the office recently.

We combine behavioral analytics, machine learning, and signature-based techniques to protect endpoints from today’s most common attacks. Secure Endpoint also continuously monitors all your endpoints with real-time detection engines to find advanced, unknown threats that might have evaded defenses previously, so you don’t have to spend time doing it.

In the event of a breach, it delivers robust and automated remediation capabilities as well as deeply insightful dashboards that explain details of the attack. After endpoints are isolated automatically, admins explore the entire scope of a threat with just a few clicks – understand exactly what happened and what needs to be done to fix the problem. With information like patient zero available immediately, security teams are spared from countless hours of investigation. With a single click, threats are remediated, and the issue is resolved.

“Cisco isn't like other security companies that are primarily hardware or primarily software. Cisco is both. That was really important to us, because we knew we needed control on endpoints, in the cloud, and on-prem at our properties.” Read more customer stories with Secure Endpoints on Cisco.com

— Alan Zaccario,VP of IT and Cybersecurity,New Castle Hotel and Resorts

To supplement these capabilities, we also deliver proactive, analyst-centric approach to detecting hidden threats, SecureX Threat Hunting. Threat Hunting leverages the expertise of Talos and our Research and Efficacy team to proactively identify threats in customer environments. The combination of these elements delivers high-fidelity alerting from automated, human-driven hunts. The 20 years of experience on that team benefits any organization that is struggling with lack of security knowledge or personnel.

Ready to rethink how you’re securing your remote workers and their endpoints?

Try Cisco Secure Endpoint for 30 days for free.

To learn more about cloud security services, visit the product page on cisco.com

See how Cisco Secure Endpoint stacks up against other endpoint security solutions by viewing the competitive comparison page at Cisco.com

The security industry is at an inflection point

The future of the workforce is dynamic, and cybersecurity must meet the needs of a distributed, hybrid workforce.

Businesses need to create a flexible, safe, and secure hybrid work environment with employees moving on and off network with similar levels of protection. As business and IT leaders deliver significant changes to their technology and business priorities, cybersecurity should be the bridge that enables organizations to reach their full potential.

The success of this new paradigm hinges on preparation, collaboration, and empowerment.

Businesses that have made incremental, continuous improvements to their security, such as cloud solutions or zero-trust frameworks, have had the easiest time adjusting. In order to reap the full benefits of a flexible and hybrid workplace, however, such investments cannot be made in a vacuum. With the shift to a distributed workforce, network and security teams need to provide seamless and secure access to applications and services, anywhere and anytime. Security, networking, and collaboration can no longer be seen in silos.

“SecureX, I think, is going to be a game change. It’s one of the most exciting things I see - using [it] to augment tools that we have in place, or other services…Cisco is rock solid.” Read more customer stories with AMP for endpoint on Cisco.com

— Alvin Abrams,Director Global NetworkSecurity/Engineer at Alvarez & Marsal

Because of this, we’re able to help our customers see across their whole environment, remote workers included, and give them the tools they need to ensure each user is working securely.

Our platform, SecureX, unifies data, analytics and automation across endpoints, network, and cloud to boost operational productivity with more intelligent detection and more confident responses. It helps security, network and IT unify their efforts and reduce duplication to incredible results. Teams using SecureX are seeing time benefits across their responsibilities because they are able to automate elements like threat investigation, hunting, and remediation, get better precision across those tasks and lower operational costs as they are doing it.

The SecureX platform means teams are better positioned to support evolving business and technology needs – like securing remote workers – while staying ahead of an ever-changing threat landscape.