There are two elements to ensuring your company is prepared and protected:
- Implement a cloud-based network architecture for your productivity software
- Protect workers from the most common attack vector with email monitoring
Cloud-Based Architecture is the Key to Supporting a Distributed Workforce
Over the last few years, enterprises have had less and less control over the technology workers use. The days of showing up to the office to use a company desktop or laptop have been waning for some time. Recent developments represent the last nail in the coffin.
With a distributed workforce, personnel will be accessing your essential files and software from all over the country or even all over the world. They’ll use a variety of hardware to do it: From conventional desktops to laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
In a conventional network structure, this would mean each user accesses information they need by logging into your company intranet, a private network consisting of servers at your physical office. The software they use would be housed on that hardware.
This creates a single point of failure – and a single point of attack for hackers. It also degrades service quality, since data must go back and forth from the single location. Even with today’s high speed internet, data can’t traverse thousands of miles instantly.
Cloud computing is the most sophisticated of the IT solutions designed to solve this problem. A cloud network is a distributed network consisting of many different servers accessible only to the client businesses of a cloud provider.
Providers leverage economies of scale to offer a network based on the strongest security available. Wider network geography means users at different locations can get excellent service and hackers cannot focus on a single point of attack.
Even With Cloud, Modern Businesses Can’t Do Without Email Protection
The other half of the equation? Email monitoring and filtering.
Cloud networks protect against attacks where data is accessed while it’s “in transit” from the user to the destination and vice versa. But that’s only one of two types of attacks that are rapidly accelerating. IT solutions must also address the new dangers coming from email.
Email is rising as one of the most common forms of attack against businesses in Florida.
“Trojan horse” attachments that can be controlled using modern antivirus programs are just part of the problem. Phishing emails, which steal usernames and passwords, function by impersonating someone in authority. They cannot be stopped with antivirus alone, since they prey on users rather than hardware.
A full-scale email monitoring strategy prevents many of these messages from reaching their intended targets. Combined with training to teach staff the hallmarks of a phishing email, the right IT solutions will make your distributed workforce far safer than before.
As your managed IT services partner, Atlantic Communications Team helps you select and implement the right IT solutions for you. To learn more, contact us today.