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Reducing the attack surface: how to empower your staff while

keeping your network secure

Goverlan’s Pascal Bergeot considers what the recent Google Document hit means for remote
workers and advises what companies need to do to reduce the risk of such attacks.

News this month of the Google Docs phishing scam is not the first time that shared cloud-based
resources have hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Many popular collaboration and IT
management tools – such as Teamviewer and Slack to name just two – have had their time in
the spotlight for compromises and breaches.

The truth is these systems unwittingly provide an easy backdoor for cybercriminals, and add yet
another dimension to the expanding surface of attack that modern companies find themselves
faced with, which is already escalating thanks to the growing number of mobile devices and the
increasing presence of the Internet of Things (IoT).

The way we work is changing – today’s connected world is customer-driven and business
happens everywhere. More and more organizations are realizing that their applications must
move with the business. From laptops and computers to tablets and smartphones, enterprises
are becoming more flexible and customer experience is becoming seamless.

However, mobile workspaces must satisfy not just employees, but also IT teams as well.
Employees expect to be productive and be able to collaborate with their colleagues; IT teams
expect to deliver applications and tools seamlessly across any device while having enterprise-
level control to ensure data security.

So how can companies continue being flexible while at the same time reducing security
threats? The answer is to remove as much of the attack surface as possible. Here are five tips
to help IT departments secure their borders as effectively as possible:

1/ Remove the parts you cannot control

If you cannot control a part of your process you cannot secure it, and must rely on the
controlling agent to warrant its integrity. While you may not be able to remove every potential
weak link in the chain, you can minimize your risk exposure by reducing your reliance on third-
party cloud-based systems. On-premises alternatives remove the single external point of failure
that can put your networks at risk of compromise.

2/ Ensure you have secure privileged access

There are three key points that need to be made here:

• Don’t allow for weak privilege access, such as single password authentication that
provide backdoors to gain system access. Instead, strong native authentication
mechanisms should be enforced.

80 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – June 2017 Edition
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