Question

What are the risks associated with allowing remote access to critical servers? What are the advantages of allowing remote access to critical servers? Do the advantages outweigh the risks, in your view? What steps would you recommend taking to ensure the highest level of security for your network? Explain.

Answer 1

`Hey,

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Let's start with some potential risks and then provide ideas for workarounds. Besides the threat of introducing malware into your systems, there are other technical and business dangers.

First, granting system access to an outsider lowers your security level to that of the external provider. If they have feeble controls, they become the weakest link in your security chain. If a hacker compromises their system, he or she can use that as a backdoor into your network. In parallel, as their risk increases, so does yours.

Second, there are also business and reputation risks. If their breached system is used to gain malicious access to your system, your company's name will also be in the headlines. Bad press will drive away customers, actual and potential business and can even lead to an unwelcome regulatory review.

Third, allowing external access of this nature circumvents technical controls, such as firewalls. If unfettered access is allowed, why bother with firewalls and access controls? You might as well leave your network wide open for anyone to come in. Further, if the software they want to install contains malware, their remote access is a direct pipeline for malicious code into your network.

Remote Access is for everyone. Whether you want to access an important file on your office desktop or provide support for a client, remote network tools enable you to remotely connect to desktops and applications in a secured network. Today, remote access has become an inevitable concept for most organizations. In an earlier post on introducing remote access, we discussed the basic aspects of this concept. Now, let us look at how remote accessing tools can help you increase your service levels to improve your business performance. Listed below are some of the benefits offered by a powerful remote accessing software.

By providing remote access to employees, companies can make sure that business service levels are always maintained. Consider an instance wherein an employee is not able to come to the office due to an unforeseen circumstance. Still, the employee can connect to office networks and work from home. This way, deadlines are effectively met. Whether you are at office, home or traveling around, you can make sure that you are always connected to your business processes.

Remote accessing tools enable you to optimize resources to the fullest. For instance, Microsoft applications like Excel and Word are useful to certain departments within an organization. Instead of acquiring licenses for hundreds of users, you can install these applications on a single server and provide remote access to users. Today, 2X Software provides innovative applications like the 2X RDP / Remote Desktop Client for Chrome which enables users to access other systems using a Chrome browser. Employees who use Google ChromeBooks can access Microsoft applications using this RDP tool and save costs on infrastructure expenses.

Before even considering such access, you'll need to do the following. First, conduct a thorough risk assessment of your partners. Even consider an onsite visit to their facilities, particularly their data centers and any other locations housing IT and network infrastructure. Make sure they meet your security standards in the following areas: physical and network security and access and administrative controls. Make sure partners have written information security policies covering all these controls, and an IT security department that backs them up.

Next, severely restrict access to your systems. The third party should only have access to a segment of your network that is separated from the internal network by firewalls or an isolated subnet. Access should be restricted to only specific IP addresses from the outside party, and be limited to a restricted time period and then closely monitored.

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