Digital White Papers

I L T A W H I T E P A P E R | T E C H S O L U T I O N S 22 Consequently, stolen credentials can be used with the iPhone Mail app and other mail apps to connect into the victim's email account for purposes of theft and impersonation. While most often associated with smartphones and tablets, with a remote workforce, laptops must be brought into the fold. Laptops should require the same certification and control as other mobile devices. Multi-factor Authentication Our existence in the office is a factor that grants us access to firm data. When out of the office, we lose that factor of authenticity. What's left are only our usernames and passwords, both relatively easy to steal. Multi factor authentication is a way of validating one's identity in real time based on something they have that has been given by the firm and cannot be stolen. With all or most connections being initiated remotely, firms without MFA are at exponentially more risk now. MFA should be in place for all systems to which you connect, including cloud services like Office365, and remote connectivity services like VPN, RDS, and Citrix. Get Chatting Once the domain of chat for most people, collaboration tools including Teams, Cisco Jabber, WebEx, and Zoom provide capabilities critical to connecting people who are physically apart from each other. Seeing expressions makes communication more efficient. Being on-screen keeps people from distractions around them. Sharing screens is the new looking over one's shoulder. Firms with an existing collaborative culture transitioned to remote working with little ramp-up time. They are also the ones readily extending themselves to their clients. This may be a Blackberry moment, in which, seemingly overnight, clients expect a new level of connectedness. Stand by Me Firms with a culture of utilizing centralized helpdesk staff who remote-control to assist employees have transitioned well to working from home. These helpdesks provide an efficient way to troubleshoot and resolve problems experienced in remote locations. As employees acclimate to working from home, firms can improve procurement efforts by prepackaging shopping lists for employees to use for hardware deliveries. Lists include video conferencing starter packs, new computer outfits, computer peripherals and second monitors, and printer, toner, paper sets. In remote working scenarios, firms benefit from reducing the need for office and data center visits by firm engineers and consultants. There has never been a better time or reason to move services to the cloud. In addition to the end-user accessibility and performance benefits, cloud services replace firm infrastructure that requires on-going hands- on attention. If you have yet to move services to the cloud, data backup might be the right first step "This may be a Blackberry moment, in which, seemingly overnight, clients expect a new level of connectedness."

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