When COVID-19 forced companies to go remote overnight in 2020, security teams watched helplessly as their carefully controlled office networks dissolved into thousands of home networks, coffee shop Wi-Fi connections, and personal devices. One company I know discovered that an employee had been accessing sensitive financial systems from their home computer—the same computer their teenager used for gaming and downloading who-knows-what from the internet. Surprisingly, nothing bad happened to that specific company, but they realized how lucky they'd been.
Remote work is now a permanent fixture for many organizations, but it fundamentally expands the attack surface. When everyone worked in an office behind the same firewall, with IT-managed devices on a controlled network, security was more straightforward. Now employees work from home networks with varying security standards, connect from coffee shops and airports, and sometimes use personal devices that might also be used by family members. Each of these scenarios introduces risks that didn't exist in the traditional office environment.
The Remote Work Security Challenge
The office security model was built on perimeter defense—a strong wall around the office network with everything inside considered trusted. That model breaks down with remote work. Your employees are connecting from outside the perimeter, often using devices you don't fully control, across networks you can't secure.
Attackers understand this and have adapted their tactics. Phishing campaigns specifically target remote workers. Attackers scan for poorly secured home networks and exposed remote desktop services. They exploit the fact that people working from home might be more distracted, more likely to click suspicious links, or less likely to follow security procedures when there's no IT person down the hall to ask for help.
The good news is that you don't need to bring everyone back to the office to maintain security. You need a different approach—one that assumes people will work from anywhere and focuses on securing access, devices, and data rather than just network perimeters.
Establish Clear Device Policies
One of the first decisions you'll face is whether to allow employees to use personal devices (BYOD - Bring Your Own Device) or provide company-managed devices. There's no universally right answer, but each approach has security implications.
Company-provided devices give you the most control. You can enforce security configurations, install required software, implement monitoring, and remotely wipe devices if they're lost or when employees leave. The downside is cost and logistics—buying, distributing, and managing devices for everyone.
Personal devices (BYOD) are cheaper and employees often prefer using their own equipment. But you have less control. You can't prevent employees from installing risky software or letting family members use the same device. Your ability to enforce security measures is limited by what employees will tolerate on their personal property.
If you allow BYOD, set minimum security requirements: devices must use full disk encryption, have up-to-date operating systems, use screen locks, and run approved security software. Consider using Mobile Device Management (MDM) or Mobile Application Management (MAM) solutions that can enforce these requirements and create a secure container for work data without affecting personal use.
Regardless of your approach, document your policies clearly. Employees should know what's expected, what's allowed, and what happens if devices are lost or stolen. Make sure policies cover what happens when employees leave the company—how quickly must devices be returned, and what happens to company data on personal devices?
Secure the Connection
When employees connect from outside your office, their traffic crosses untrusted networks—home ISPs, coffee shop Wi-Fi, hotel networks, cellular connections. You need to protect that traffic and control what systems remote workers can access.
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have been the traditional solution. VPNs create an encrypted tunnel from the employee's device to your network, protecting traffic from eavesdropping and making it appear as if the employee is connecting from within your office network. Modern VPNs should use strong encryption (like AES-256), support multi-factor authentication, and ideally use split-tunneling so only work traffic goes through the VPN while personal traffic uses the employee's regular internet connection.
Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is a newer approach that's gaining popularity. Instead of giving employees access to your entire network once they connect, ZTNA validates every connection request based on identity, device posture, and context. An employee might be able to access the CRM system but not financial systems, and only from an approved device that meets security requirements. This "never trust, always verify" approach is more secure than traditional VPNs but requires more sophisticated infrastructure.
Cloud-based security services like Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) combine VPN, firewall, and other security functions into a cloud-delivered service. These can be easier to scale for remote workforces than traditional on-premises solutions.
Whatever solution you choose, make sure it's easy enough for employees to use consistently. If the VPN is slow or frequently drops connections, employees will find ways to work around it. Security that's too painful to use doesn't get used.
Protect Against Home Network Risks
Most employees aren't security experts, and their home networks reflect that. You can't control their home networks directly, but you can provide guidance and mitigate risks.
Offer guidelines for securing home Wi-Fi: use WPA3 or at least WPA2 encryption, change default router passwords, keep router firmware updated, and consider using a separate guest network for non-work devices. Some companies even provide routers pre-configured with appropriate security settings.
Educate employees about the risks of public Wi-Fi. Coffee shop and airport networks are often unencrypted and can be monitored by attackers. If employees must use public Wi-Fi, emphasize that they should always connect through the VPN before accessing any work systems.
Consider implementing endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools that can detect and respond to threats even when devices aren't on your corporate network. These tools monitor for suspicious behavior—like malware trying to steal credentials or ransomware attempting to encrypt files—and can automatically isolate compromised devices.
Strengthen Authentication and Access Control
When employees are connecting from anywhere, you need strong confidence that they are who they claim to be. Username and password alone aren't sufficient—passwords get phished, reused, and stolen.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is essential for remote access. Require MFA for VPN connections, cloud applications, email, and any system containing sensitive data. Authenticator apps or hardware tokens are more secure than SMS-based codes, which can be intercepted.
Single Sign-On (SSO) can actually improve security for remote workers. Instead of managing dozens of passwords for different systems, employees authenticate once and gain access to multiple applications. This makes it easier to enforce MFA (you only need it at the SSO level) and gives you centralized visibility into access.
Conditional access policies let you enforce different security requirements based on risk. Maybe employees can access email from any device, but financial systems require a company-managed device with up-to-date security software. Or perhaps access from unusual locations requires additional verification.
Manage Data Security
With employees working from anywhere, company data ends up on personal devices, in home offices, sometimes written on sticky notes next to home computers. You need strategies to protect that data.
Data classification helps you apply appropriate protections based on sensitivity. Not everything needs the same level of security. Public marketing materials need less protection than customer financial information or proprietary source code. Define categories (like public, internal, confidential, restricted) and policies for how each type should be handled.
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tools can prevent sensitive information from leaving your control. They can block employees from uploading confidential files to personal cloud storage, emailing customer data to personal accounts, or copying sensitive information to USB drives. Configure DLP to alert rather than block when you're first implementing it, so you understand how employees actually work and can refine policies without disrupting productivity.
Encryption protects data whether it's on devices, in transit, or stored in cloud services. Full disk encryption protects data on lost or stolen devices. End-to-end encryption protects sensitive communications. Cloud storage with encryption at rest protects data even if storage systems are compromised.
Combat the Increase in Phishing and Social Engineering
Remote workers face more phishing attempts than office workers. Attackers know that people working from home might be more distracted, less able to verify suspicious requests with colleagues, and more likely to use personal email alongside work email.
Regular security awareness training is even more important for remote teams. Use realistic examples—show actual phishing emails that have targeted your industry. Teach employees to recognize warning signs: unexpected requests for credentials, urgent messages that bypass normal procedures, links that don't match the claimed destination.
Make it easy for remote employees to verify suspicious requests. Provide a simple way to forward questionable emails to your security team. Create a culture where asking "is this legitimate?" is encouraged and rewarded, not embarrassing.
Conduct phishing simulations to test awareness and identify employees who need additional training. But make these educational, not punitive. The goal is to build awareness, not shame people who click simulated phishing links.
Maintain Visibility and Monitoring
When everyone worked in the office, IT could walk around and see what was happening. Remote work requires different approaches to visibility.
Implement centralized logging and monitoring that works regardless of where employees are located. Collect logs from VPN connections, cloud applications, endpoints, and security tools. Look for suspicious patterns—like impossible travel (logins from different countries within short time periods), unusual access patterns, or signs of compromised accounts.
Use endpoint management tools that report device health: are security updates installed, is antivirus running, is the device encrypted? Devices that fall out of compliance should lose access to sensitive systems until they're brought back into compliance.
Balance monitoring with privacy. Employees working from home have reasonable expectations of privacy. Be transparent about what you monitor and why. Focus on security-relevant activities (like detecting compromises) rather than productivity monitoring that tracks every keystroke.
Support Remote Workers
Security measures only work if employees can and will follow them. Remote workers often feel disconnected from IT support, which can lead to workarounds that compromise security.
Make IT support easily accessible to remote employees. Offer multiple channels—chat, phone, video calls, ticket systems. Respond quickly, especially to security concerns. If it takes three days to get help with VPN problems, employees will find ways to work without the VPN.
Provide clear documentation and self-service resources. Simple things like how to connect to the VPN, how to report suspicious emails, or what to do if a device is lost should be documented in easy-to-find, easy-to-follow guides.
Regularly communicate about security. Share relevant threats, explain new security measures, celebrate good security behaviors. Keep security top of mind without creating panic or fatigue.
Plan for Incidents
When a security incident happens with remote workers, response is more complicated. You can't physically collect a compromised device or immediately isolate a system by unplugging it.
Your incident response plan needs to account for remote scenarios. How do you remotely wipe a compromised device? How do you investigate incidents when you can't physically access systems? How do you communicate with affected employees when normal communication channels might be compromised?
Ensure remote workers know how to report security incidents and who to contact. Keep contact information accessible even if normal systems are unavailable—maybe on a wallet card or in a printed guide.
Final Thoughts
Securing remote work isn't about implementing one technology or policy—it's about creating a comprehensive approach that addresses devices, connectivity, authentication, data protection, user awareness, and monitoring. The goal is making remote work as secure as office work was (or more secure) while keeping it practical enough that employees actually follow security measures.
The companies that do remote security well treat it as an ongoing journey. They regularly reassess risks, update policies based on new threats, and most importantly, they involve employees in security rather than just imposing rules. When remote workers understand why security measures exist and have tools that work well, they become your best defense rather than your weakest link.