The VPN is Back but Don’t Forget Device Hygiene

Sandeep Kumar | March 23, 2020
In an effort to prevent the spread of Coronavirus and flatten the pandemic curve, an unprecedented number of public and private sector employees around the world are now working remotely. The statistics are staggering – 50% rise in internet use, 37.5% new users on Microsoft Teams, 112% increase in VPN usage – in just a matter of days.
Despite the move to cloud-delivered services over the last few years, many common and proprietary applications still reside on-prem. Additionally, employees in government, healthcare and critical infrastructure sectors require access to corporate and operational networks. This leaves organizations reliant on virtual private networks (VPNs) to secure the communication pathway from remote users to a corporate network with an end-to-end encrypted tunnel. Due to the rapid shift to a remote workforce, the humble VPN is back in vogue. But on its own, a VPN doesn’t provide a holistic approach and may provide a false sense of security.
While VPNs secure the communication path to the corporate network, they don’t enforce security on the device itself, nor do they monitor its activity when connected to the corporate network. With a massive work-from-home community and potential security gaps, there are already early examples of threat actors targeting this new attack surface. If organizations do not have established or mature device hygiene practices, they may be putting themselves at risk.
There are several reasons that work-from-home environments require elevated levels of device hygiene:
While it’s hard to predict how long this situation will last, here are a few best practices to keep in mind to secure your workforce:
While VPNs play an essential role in securing remote connections, solid network access control and device compliance strategies are also crucial to ensure effective device hygiene enforcement. To learn more, read the Forescout Device Compliance Solution Brief.
Toll-Free (US): 1-866-377-8771
Tel (Intl): +1-408-213-3191
Support: +1-708-237-6591
Headquarters
190 W Tasman Dr.
San Jose, CA, USA 95134