Many people around the globe are working from home and contributing to their company remotely. But how secure is remote work? What cybersecurity challenges does it face? And what can be done to mitigate the risks remote work poses?
During the global COVID-19 pandemic, working from home has become normal. Many businesses had to face a variety of issues while transitioning to remote working. One of the main challenges has been, quite obviously, keeping their operations secure and efficient.
Remote working is tricky — no doubt about that. We are required to use the internet as the medium for communication and collaboration for what would normally be a face-to-face interaction. We often need to share sensitive data such as internal company documents and even passwords. This poses a cybersecurity risk that should not be overlooked. Today, we’ll be looking at what risk businesses operating remotely face and how those security risks can be mitigated.
Alarming rates of cybercrime
It’s true that the story for the past few years has been the story of the global COVID-19 pandemic. But there is more to this story. Over these couple of years we’ve arguably changed our relationship with digital technology quite a bit. A vast number of companies moved their operations online, which made coping with the pandemic easier but at the same time opened a floodgate of cyber criminal activity. In the eyes of cyber crooks, the attack vector widened to an unprecedented size.
A recent Check Point Research study revealed that in 2021, there was a whopping 50% increase in overall attacks per week on corporate networks compared to 2020.
Cloudwards reports that ransomware attacks were extremely prevalent and yielded unprecedented profits for the bad actors behind them. According to the report 37% of all businesses and organizations experienced a ransomware attack in 2021 and just a bit over 57% of businesses are successful in recovering the affected data using backups. In 2021 ransome cost the world about $20 billion.
Unfortunately, experts agree that the prospects for 2022 don’t look good and cyber criminal activity is expected to further increase in frequency.
How do password managers help businesses?
Make management of online accounts easy and secure
Companies that operate exclusively online know the frustrations that come with securing and managing a vast number of online accounts. Creating a unique password for each account and storing those passwords securely can be a challenge and eventually lead to password fatigue. Once users experience password overload, it is at that moment that users give up and start reusing passwords across multiple accounts, which is a huge security risk.
However, a business password manager offers an alternative to the struggle. Take our recent Bored Panda story as it details how this huge media publisher was able to eliminate annoyances of having to manage hundreds of online accounts by deploying a password manager. But don’t take our word for, here’s what they have to say:
Work life has definitely improved in terms of password management. The team doesn’t need to look through messages or excel spreadsheets to find their passwords anymore. Therefore, this single centralized location for passwords is very helpful. Now everyone has access to login credentials on NordPass. Considering we have nearly 100 YouTube accounts, and there are some people who need access to them all, a password manager saves us hours during the work day. NordPass is an insanely useful tool for such applications.
– Justina Palinavičiūtė
Head of Monetization @ Bored Panda
They improve the organization’s overall security posture
Cybercrooks are getting better at what they do with each passing day. Think about how many news headlines concern data breaches these days. Often one of the primary causes of a data breach is poor password hygiene – the practice of storing and managing passwords in an unsecure way.
Password managers not only improve password hygiene within the organization but also provide an additional boost for the company’s overall security posture. By deploying a password manager for organizational use, you can enforce company-wide password policies to ensure that all accounts are protected properly. Furthermore, a password manager ensures that all your business-related passwords are stored in a single place. In turn this can help companies save hefty costs of data breaches, which often are a result of poor password hygiene.
Here’s what Super How? – a research and development company focused on utilizing blockchain to create next-generation solutions for business, individuals, and society at large – had to say about their experience of having a corporate password manager deployed for use.
Ever since we deployed NordPass, we’ve been using unique passwords and actively tracking their strength and health in the Admin Panel. We still have areas where we can surely improve, but at least our weaker passwords don’t make the Top 200 Most Common Passwords list. Generally, Vytautas has been very proactive on the educational side of things. He’s been introducing new employees to our password policies and explaining the risk related to poor password hygiene.
– Andrius Bartminas
Co-founder and CEO @ Super How?
They can improve productivity and save time
Password managers can come in handy in a variety of ways. However, rarely do business owners think of password managers as a productivity tool. In reality, such a tool can save a lot of time if used correctly.
For instance, the autofill feature – which is a part of every single password manager out there – eliminates the need to manually type in passwords, credit card details, or personal information. Often autosave and password generator features work hand in hand by allowing users to instantly generate new passwords whatever they sign up for a new online account. Password managers usually offer other features that are tailored for business. For instance, having the ability to organize passwords according to Groups, will reduce the time anyone in the organization would need to find the password they need.
We enjoy the Groups feature the most. This feature allows us to organize passwords neatly according to our particular needs. It’s also great that we can share credentials with the entire group at once, which saves us a great deal of time and makes our lives a whole lot easier.
– Virginijus Girnius
Chief operating officer @ 1StopVAT
NordPass Business at your service
Everything starts with a password. It’s the first line of defense. NordPass Business offers you and your organization a secure and intuitive way to ensure corporate password security.
Designed for complete security, NordPass Business comes with a user-friendly interface and a variety of handy features. It is a fully encrypted password management solution that uses zero-knowledge architecture to protect your company's passwords in a single place.
Thanks to the intuitive design of the Admin Panel managing users and access privileges is easier than ever. Furthermore, secure item sharing enables employees to share passwords in a secure and smooth manager among each other.
Additional features such as Password Health – designed to help you assess password strength – and Data Breach Scanner – built to help you determine whether any of your sensitive data has been exposed in a breach – ensure greater overall security. Company-wide settings can be enforced easily and used to foster a security-first company culture.
A business password manager should be a no-brainer in this day and age. It fortifies overall security posture and can be an essential tool for any company looking to secure a cyber insurance policy.
Here’s what else NordPass Business offers for your company:
Pay for active members only
Add more members when your business grows
Top-level security and ease of use
New features at no extra cost
We’re here to help
If you have any questions, we are happy to help. We also offer training opportunities for your team to get the feel of NordPass Business quickly and easily. Feel free to contact us at [email protected] for a product demo call.