Bolster your wireless security in the hybrid workforce era

After more than a year of focusing on securing remote workers, it’s time to prepare your office for a hybrid workforce and reinforce your wireless security.

The threats to your on-site wireless security haven’t gone away and having workers who are in and out of your office post-pandemic ends means the network security landscape is just as dynamic as ever. The hybrid workforce is a stark reminder that there is no network perimeter, and you must constantly review your network security checklist—Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), the Internet of Things (IoT), and ubiquitous connectivity remain important considerations.

Secure your office for a hybrid workforce

As people come back to office, the best practices for wireless security are more important than ever, especially as many employees may no longer have a permanent office or workspace as hot desking becomes more prevalent. In addition to guests, you’ll have employees connecting to your office network on-site in an inconsistent manner with devices that are connecting a variety of other networks, whether it’s the employee’s home network or a wi-fi hotspot as it becomes possible to work from coffee shops again.

Now is a great time to review your management policy for all IT endpoints and provide refresher courses on wireless security for your staff. For some organizations, a hybrid workforce was already familiar to them before the pandemic, but for others it will be just as jarring as going fully remote. Given that you’re about to experience another paradigm shift, it can’t hurt to bring an outside partner to evaluate your current wireless security posture.

What’s in a name

A good place to start is to review your inventory of wireless routers access points.

No matter how many you have or where they are located, you should review their service set identifiers (SSIDs) to make sure they are suitably named as to be found by authorized users, but not so easy for unwanted guests to connect to because the names are obvious or remain the factory default. Your network naming should be just as well thought out password selection—avoid creating one that’s likely to help a hacker guess the network password. Rotating passwords and SSIDs can also make it harder for devices and networks to be breached, and the more unique, the better.

With a hybrid workforce, you may want to segment your network so that transient employees have dedicated wireless access points to connect to that are separate from employees who are back on-site full time. Either way, you should hide your SSID so only users who know the actual wireless network name can search it out.

Apply access controls

Even before the advent of the hybrid workforce, there was never a need for every employee to access the same network resources or devices. Just as you segment wireless router access, consider giving specific users access to specific devices such as network printers depending on whether they’re occasionally on-site or in the office everyday.

No one needs to be connected to every device in the organization, so segmenting access will limit the impact of a breach should one endpoint be compromised. At the end of the day, not all employees are equal, including post-pandemic visitors, who wireless access for their mobile devices. Adopting a Zero Trust model for wireless security can go a long way because it’s based on the mindset that organizations shouldn’t automatically trust anything inside or outside its perimeter—every connection must be verified, whether it’s an endpoint, switch or IP address if the organization is to prevent breaches.

Secure and scan everything

Wireless security demands that all access points been encrypted, and yet surprisingly, many wireless networks are left wide open, making them easy avenues for threat actors to gather sensitive information, or as a means to gateway to hack more secure systems.

No matter how stringent your wireless security, it’s often just a of time before someone or something gets past the firewall because today’s cyber threats are so persistent. The trick is to balance security with productivity—you don’t want it to be a barrier to getting things done, otherwise employees will find shortcuts around it whether they’re working at home or in the office.

If you’re feeling rusty about in-office wireless security and would like a refresher to prepare your organization for the hybrid workforce, seek out the help of a managed security services provider.

There are many ways artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning already impact cybersecurity. You can expect that trend to continue in 2024 – both as tools for data protection as well as a threat.

Balancing Cybersecurity Innovation Amid Evolving Threat Landscapes

Even as you implement AI and machine learning into your cybersecurity strategy through the adoption of tools like Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Managed Detection and Response (MDR), so are threat actors. They will continue to update and evolve their own methodologies and tools to compromise their targets by applying AI and machine learning to how they use ransomware, malware and deepfakes.

With small and medium-sized businesses just much at risk as their large enterprise counterparts, SMBs must take advantage of AI and machine learning as mush possible. AI-directed attacks are expected to rise in 2024 in the form of deepfake technologies that make phishing and impersonation more effective, as well as evolving ransomware and malware.

Deepfake social engineering techniques

Deepfake technologies that leverage AI are especially worrisome, as they can create fake content that spurs employees and organizations to work against their best interests. Hackers can use deepfakes to create massive changes with serious financial consequences, including altering stock prices.

Deepfake social engineering techniques will only improve with the use of AI, increasing the likelihood of data breaches through unauthorized access to systems and more authentic looking phishing messages that are more personalized, and hence, more effective.

Countering Cyber Threats and Harnessing Innovation in 2024

If hackers are keen on leveraging AI and machine learning to defeat your cybersecurity, you must be ready to combat them in equal measure – just as AI and machine learning will create new challenges in 2024, they can also help you bolster your cybersecurity. While regulations are being developed to foster ethical use of AI, threat actors are not likely to follow them.

AI will also affect your cyber insurance as your providers will use it to assess your resilience against cyberattacks and adjust your premium payments accordingly. AI presents an opportunity for you to improve your cybersecurity to keep those insurance costs under control.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of doom being predicted around the growing use of AI and machine learning. And while it does pose a risk to your organization and its sensitive data, you can use it to bolster your cybersecurity even as threat actors leverage AI to up the ante. A managed service provider with a focus on security can help you use AI and machine learning to protect your organization as we head into 2024.

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