A significant component of the internet infrastructure sustaining the current work-from-home workforce is virtual private networks (VPNs). Web traffic encryption, data security, and privacy are the duties of VPNs.

Due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) epidemic, the majority of employees are now working from home, making VPN servers essential to a business’s infrastructure. Moving forward, IT teams must concentrate on ensuring the security and availability of these servers. More than ever, businesses and IT personnel must put up systems to collect data on VPN service performance and availability.

Involved Systems
All VPN servers and client software have received a warning from CISA (the agency for cybersecurity and infrastructure security).

Recommendations
Here are some pointers for protecting corporate assets when working remotely:

  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) solutions should be enabled by businesses in order to safeguard VPN accounts from unwanted access.
  • Update VPN servers, patch them, and check the patch levels. Since the summer of 2019, corporate VPN solutions have become a frequent target of attacks.
  • Prevent a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on VPNs: A hacker can use a DDoS (distributed denial of service) assault to overwhelm a VPN server, causing it to fail and become less accessible.
  • Keep an eye out for anticipated COVID-19 phishing schemes and steer clear of social engineering and phishing attempts during these tumultuous times when staff members may be distracted and inclined to go on shady sources for news updates.

For VPN accounts, enable multi-factor authentication.

Companies should carefully consider activating a multi-factor authentication (MFA) solution to safeguard VPN accounts from illegal access in light of an anticipated rise in VPN phishing attempts. According to a survey from Microsoft published last year, using an MFA solution for online accounts typically prevents 99.9% of account takeover (ATO) attempts, even when the attacker has legitimate access to the victim’s account.

To get more updates on protecting your business, be on the look- out, contact us now!