Remote Workforce

7 Critical Considerations for Firewall Performance in the Era of Secure Remote Work

All organizations in today’s world must adapt to changing business conditions to ensure a secure remote workforce. Traditional firewalls cannot scale across multiple applications required for secure telework, placing the burden on IT teams to upgrade existing firewalls. Upgrading outdated integrated firewalls and virtual private networks (VPN) solutions become critical requirements to ensure a secure remote workforce.

Organizations are investing in Next-generation Firewalls (NGFW) to provide performance and advanced capabilities required to scale to meet future demands of distributed teams. 

Below are seven key considerations to guide your NGFW evaluation. 

Download the report here.

1. IPsec VPN performance

Teleworking employees have access to sensitive company data. Protecting this against compromises requires the ability to ensure that remote employee connections to the company network are secure.

To ensure your network is secure, you need to validate that your NGFW can sustain the user connections and encrypted traffic load independent of the location of the users.

2. Threat protection performance

How well does your NGFW perform when running full threat protection? To sustain performance with complete threat protection, you need to insist on real numbers and a close reading of documented performance claims from your vendor.

3. SSL inspection capacity

A majority of enterprise network traffic is now encrypted, and bad actors are continuing to take advantage. Ensure that your NGFW SSL decryption and inspection can offset these security risks and provide predictable performance with minimal degradation in speed.

4. Price vs. performance

Many NGFW vendors increase the size of their firewalls to boost performance and increase the cost. With big leaps in disruptive firewall technology, ensure that your NGFW vendor combines price and performance with an eye to a smaller footprint

5. Credible third-party validation

No organization investing in NGFW should rely on a single vendor. Review third-party evaluations for detailed validation of various NGFW solutions.

6. Easy, single-pane-of-glass management

Security teams that have to toggle between multiple dashboards to assess vulnerabilities, respond to threats, and ensure system resiliency are not efficient. Rely on a vendor that can provide a seamless dashboard that aggregates information for efficient decision making.

7. Future-proofing

All organizations must embrace digital innovation and transformation to become more efficient and secure. Ensuring an NGFW that not only provides performance at agreeable cost and scale but can also anticipate future demands.

 

 

 

10 Ways to Stay Safe As We Return to Work

In the last week or so the national conversation has shifted from sheltering in place to returning to work. Slowly and carefully, but we are opening back up. Now is the time to remain vigilant to the constant threats to your business from ransomware and malicious attacks.

In a recent article, Google stated that since January it has seen a 350% increase in phishing attacks, and they saw more than 18 million daily malware and phishing emails related to COVID-19 scams just in the past week. That’s on top of the more than 240 million daily spam messages it sees related to the novel coronavirus.

And it is not just companies that are getting overwhelmed. According to their own report, the FBI fielded 2,047 ransomware complaints in the U.S. in 2019. In response the crushing load of root cause investigations, the FBI has turned to corporate leaders and cybersecurity insurance carriers to better understand how to stop ransomware attacks.

The best course of action, is to proactively protect your organization from being attacked successfully. Making certain of that is a complex problem that is specific to each company, but we have created some quick tips to help you remember how to keep cybercriminals out of your IT operation.

10 Tips to Keep Cybercriminals Out

  1. Get the Facts. Stay away from the rumor mill and use information from reliable sources to make business decisions in chaotic times.
  2. Think Twice before Clicking Links. Make sure staffers are on the lookout for suspicious links that can lead to ransomware.
  3. Be Suspicious of Unexpected Attachments. Ensure users only open attachments from proven, trusted sources no matter how “official” that attachment looks.
  4. Automate Compliance. Have one less thing to worry about by choosing a dynamic web portal system that keeps track of everything.
  5. Protect those Passwords. Encourage safe password practices like using a password manager and not writing them on sticky notes.
  6. Beware of Strange Networks. Make staffers aware of the dangers of logging in from insecure public and home WiFi networks andhow to use them safely.
  7. Use Two-factor Authentication. An extra layer of security keeps passwords and data safe.
  8. Keep an Eye on the Bad Guys. Monitor the Dark Web to watch for company data so a problem can be addressed before it becomes a crisis.
  9. Stay Current on Threats. Work with a responsive partner that’s on top of today’s challenges.
  10. Ask for Help. Consult a security expert to plan effective strategies and get innovative solutions.

10 Tips to Keep Cybercriminals Out

So, while we seek continued improvements in our collective situations both professional and personal, continue to keep your guard up against ransomware and malicious attacks on your IT operation.

If you would like to learn more about how Montra can help you with these or other security threats, please contact us at info@montra.io.