Are your remote workers secure? Are you sure?

There are three essential elements to establishing a secure remote workforce:

1. Enable remote access to apps
2. Manage devices and apps
3. Protect corporate resources

What you really want are security solutions that are simple, easy to use, cost-effective. Ideally, these solutions are also flexible and scalable, without overwhelming your IT team. Furthermore, you want solutions that will maintain high levels of service to your customers while enabling your employees to stay productive.

The traditional “perimeter security” approach will not keep your data and people secure in a virtual landscape. That’s why you need to expand your security circle. Using Microsoft tools, you can easily implement this 3-step process:

1. Enabling secure remote access to apps

The goal is to enable secure access to your apps from anywhere. Whether those apps are in the cloud or anywhere else, the process starts with enforcing secure identities for your employees. Microsoft Azure Active Directory (AD) is a control plane for managing all your user identities. AD acts as a comprehensive identity and access management platform. And it is part of your Microsoft 365 subscription. You may already be using it, but if not, this would be a great time to start! Azure AD provides access control by enabling single sign-on to all your apps. With single sign-on, users only need to log in once to access any and all applications. One login[JP1] . One password. They do not need to remember separate passwords for each application account.

2. Managing and securing devices and apps

In most cases, companies are managing a heterogeneous mix of devices along with different “panes of glass” that are required. Microsoft Endpoint Manager brings all those endpoints and apps together under a single pane of glass. Endpoint Manager combines the on-premises capabilities of Microsoft Configuration Manager and the cloud-native benefits of Microsoft Intune into the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Therefore, you can deploy and manage all your apps and endpoints, extend an on-premises infrastructure with cloud security, and securely enable Bring Your Own (BYO) to access resources. You will also have the ability to automate deployment for any device directly from the manufacturer to the user and automate the provisioning of user settings, configurations, and apps.

For even greater control of mobile devices and the apps that live on them, you can deploy Microsoft Mobile Device Management (MDM) for control at the device level. With MDM, you can use conditional access to restrict access to and from the managed device. There is also Microsoft Mobile Application Management (MAM), which is ideal for BYO scenarios.

3. Protecting corporate resources

Now, and for the foreseeable future, with nearly everyone working remotely, the surface area for protecting your corporate resources is more complicated. Therefore, protecting your data, apps, and endpoints against cyber threats and security risks is more important than ever. Microsoft Information Protection safeguards sensitive data wherever it lives and travels. Microsoft Information Protection provides more than 90 out-of-the-box sensitive-information definitions that you can use to detect common data types like credit card numbers.

There are several other Microsoft security tools that you might consider:

• Microsoft Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for Teams, which automatically blocks messages that contain sensitive information
• Microsoft Cloud App Security, which allows you to monitor and control web sessions in real-time from threats such as the download of sensitive files from an unmanaged device
• Microsoft Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), which protects your organization from phishing and malware attacks, while also helping your security teams be more productive through the automation and AI capabilities inherent in Office 365 ATP.

No amount of protection is too much!

Take the next step…

Contact for more information about Expanding your Security Circle to Include Remote Workers. Call us if you require assistance to deploy any of the Microsoft security tools described above. Email us to learn about the security features built into Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Call us at 630-858-7388 or email us at nav@libertygrove.com.

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