Nowadays, more and more companies are enjoying the cost savings advantage in allowing their employees to work from home, benefiting from the convenience of telecommuting. In addition, executives, salespeople and others need to be mobile, connecting to the company network when they are in the field. There are also some employees who need to access network resources in the evenings or on the weekends from home due to special projects or unfinished work they left in the office.
These employee’s necessities contribute to a lot of remote access connections to the organization’s network. These are done by basically connecting yourself to the office server, either via phone lines by directly dialing into a remote access server on the network, or they may be made by virtual private networking (VPN), using the Internet to “tunnel” into the company’s network. In any case, the issue of security is always called to attention when you have employees connecting to the network from the outside. This is simply because you have minimal control over offsite computers.
But don’t let this turn you down. There are several things you can do to make remote access connections more safe and secure. This site will explain how to prevent remote connections from creating a security discomfort on your network.
Initially, the crucial aspect in providing for secure remote access is to carefully evaluate employees’ need to connect remotely, and grant access on a per-user basis only to those who have a certified authentic need to access the network remotely. Always remember that unless restriction parameters are done, a user connecting to the LAN via remote access can do everything that he/she could do from an onsite computer.
One of the most significant security considerations is how remote clients will be allowed. Authentication is necessary here, and it manifests the verification of the identity of the client computer or user. Do keep in mind that remote access authentication protocols are not all equally prepared and developed.