Need to reduce remote access risks?

It is a business expectation for employees to connect to the office from anywhere.  This capability reduces costs to the business in terms of travel time, expenses and creates the flexibility employees demand.

With greater remote access comes greater risk, especially when employees are permitted to connect via their own 'unmanaged' home desktops. As the remote workforce requires the resources and data traditionally secured within the office confines to do their job, there is a greater opportunity for business critical data to be inappropriately accessed.

Typically a remote user would authenticate themselves by means of a user name and password. The user name is relatively easy to discover, which means leaving a password as the sole method of defense to protect your network and business critical data.

Our experts appreciate the need to balance flexible access while securely authenticating each employee.  This ensures that the person who is remotely accessing the network and critical data is who they say they are.

By adding an additional layer of security the risks can be significantly reduce. This second layer comes in the form of two factor authentication.

The principal is "something you know, plus something you have". Something you know would be your user name and password, something you have is a SafeWord token which would typically be carried on the employees key ring.

In New Zealand, organisations such as Canterbury District Health Board and PGG Wrightsons have implemented SafeWord Two Factor Authentication. In Canterbury DHBs case, they have determined that through using SafeWord it has saved them 20% in staff productivity while giving staff more flexibility and maneuverability.  At the same time, they have maintained the highest standards of security.

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