2022 Cybersecurity Checklist

Posted December 28, 2021

We are almost two years into the pandemic and large employers across the country are still battling with work from home and requiring staff to come into the office. Recently, Citigroup, Inc, with over 220,000 employees, notified staff in the New York City area they could once again work from home. The Citigroup memo reads:

“We continue to closely monitor the latest medical data, and your health and safety remain our top priority, Like all of you, we hoped that Covid would be behind us by now, but greatly appreciate your adaptability, support for your colleagues and continued adherence to our safety measures.”

Citigroup is not alone in quickly pivoting its in-the-office stance, financial services firms such as Blackstone, Jeffries Financial Group, Citadel, and Millennium Management also recently told staff they could once again work from home amid a surge in COVID-19 positivity rate. Technology giants such as Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have indefinitely put off their return-to-office dates with Apple also closing some retail stores in the U.S. and Canada. Universities are having to change direction as Cornell, Princeton and others shifted finals to online. The ride-hailing service Uber recently gave up on trying to predict a return-to-the-office date and shifted the timeline to “yet to be determined” as rival Lyft pushed their return-to-office out to 2023.

In some cases, the shifts in return-to-office (RTO) policies have created tension between management and staff as executives strive for a return to normal, and many employees strive for a redefined and more flexible “normal.” Nearly half of executives want to work from the office every day, contrasted with only 17% of employees, according to an ongoing survey of more than 10,500 white-collar workers in a half-dozen countries by the Future Forum, a research consortium.

Whether your business has returned to the office or made plans for an extended remote work policy, the topic of securing the remote workforce needs to be addressed. With state-sponsored mobile attacks and rapidly growing spear-phishing campaigns, off-network security is critical to protecting your employees, data, and systems. In a work-from-anywhere environment, security starts with knowing and controlling what devices and endpoints your remote workforce is using and how they are connecting while off-premise. As we head into the new year, here are the items that should be on the top of your security checklist regardless of where your employees are working.

Require VPN for all off-network connections
Require MFA and strong unique random passwords
Implement advanced endpoint protection
Educate your employees on identifying and avoiding phishing attacks
Know and test your backups and breach response plans
Begin your migration to zero-trust security

Kyle Vinar

Kyle Vinar is Partner / President of Verus Corporation. He oversees all business operations and coaches Verus teams to continually improve on their solutions from client experience to product development and overall solution implementation. He works with all Verus resources to increase efficiencies and excellence in every aspect of their organizational roles. Kyle believes that people are the last real competitive edge that a company can have and constructing a rich culture is a vital step in running a world-class organization. Therefore he strives to create a culture within Verus that allows everyone to show up authentically and grow both personally and professionally, which in turn allows Verus Corp team members to provide clients with top-of-the-line service. Kyle helps balance strategy, capacity, and culture in such a way that has allowed Verus Corp to achieve exponential growth since he joined the company in 2013. One of Kyle’s greatest professional achievements has been in helping lay the foundation upon which Verus Corporation could be named the 2nd Best Place to Work by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. Kyle holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from St. Cloud State University. He lives in Champlin with his wife and 3 children. He has enjoyed volunteering as a soccer coach for over 6 years and was the former Director of Coaching for Rebels Soccer Club. If Kyle isn’t on the sidelines of one of his children’s soccer games or in the audience of his eldest’s musicals, he can often be found cruising scenic routes on his Harley, in a deer stand, or on the golf course.