Types of Remote Users You Need to Take into Account

The physical location of users is less and less important in the way we do business. A 2019 study showed that 62% of respondents worked from home at least part of the time. In the same study, 82% of those who worked remotely at least part of the time said they planned to maintain or increase their level of work remotely. Furthermore, more than half (51%) of those who did no remote work wanted to start.

Despite the environment in which we find ourselves today, with a significant but temporary increase in remote employees, it is highly likely that the number of partly or permanently remote employees will continue to increase.

One thing to note is that these numbers do not take into account the number of remote providers that function as employees performing essential business tasks. These users often need to access critical systems in the same way as an employee. Obviously, greater flexibility for workers presents greater security risks. To provide access, organizations often rely on insecure and ineffective methods and often rely on VPNs to provide secure access.

However, not all remote worker privileges are created equal. Some may require access to email and multiple business applications only, while others may require critical business applications, such as payroll, human resources, and sales and marketing data. External IT service providers who provide external technical support require the same broad access as internal IT providers.

Today we will identify the top five types of remote workers who typically require elevated system privileges and discuss how Privileged Access Management (PAM) with CyberArk Alero can help organizations provide easy and secure access to systems. Reviews managed by CyberArk.

Employees of an IT or remote security company

These users include people like domain administrators, network administrators, and others who normally access critical internal systems from the office, but may now need to do so remotely. When IT or security works outside of the office walls, it releases a key for daily security administrators.

It is essential to identify the precise levels of access that remote IT and security employees need and implement less privileged rights to ensure that they have access only to what they need. Traditional solutions like VPNs can't provide the level of granular access needed at the application level to do it effectively. Assigning this type of granular access is important because it helps prevent situations in which a Windows administrator accesses root accounts.

Integration of security tools with the directory service to provide targeted, automated access must be configured in advance so that in the event of an unexpected spike in remote work, there is no room in IT or security functions, resulting in guarantees the security conditions. Work at home.

Third-party hardware and software suppliers

Third-party hardware and software vendors, including IT service providers and contract technical support, often provide remote maintenance and services that require elevated privileges. These types of providers typically require administrator-level access to perform tasks on a variety of Windows or Linux servers or databases and are required to perform patches, system updates and more.

Each of them acts essentially as an administrator at the domain level and can, therefore, wreak havoc on the environment if it is not properly monitored and provisioned. However, the identification of users and the consideration of the access levels of each remote supplier are often carried out on a case-by-case basis by administrators, which can be very time-consuming. It is important to ensure that all of these users are identified and have correct provisioned access.

Supply chain providers

When supporting the production or delivery of goods is not the bread and butter of an organization, it is common to use specialized suppliers in the supply chain. These remote users generally have network access to monitor inventory in manufacturing or retail organizations. They may also have access to confidential data related to planned production, quality control and other critical systems that can be linked to industrial control systems and operational technology (ICS / OT) or supply chain processes on site.

These vendors may not be the first to remember as they are not qualified as administrators, but supply chain vendors have access that can be dangerously exploited by malicious attackers or become a serious problem due to internal misuse.

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