May 2023 hit Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) like a thunderbolt.
Russian hackers infiltrated HPE’s cloud email system through a compromised remote worker’s VPN credentials.
What’s alarming is that these hackers didn’t just get in for a day or two. They lurked inside Microsoft Office 365 email and SharePoint environments for six months, specifically targeting employees in cybersecurity, sales, and other departments, all without HPE getting a whiff of a breach.
Think about the implications. A company with world-class security resources couldn’t detect sophisticated attackers moving through their network via a single compromised remote access point for half a year.
The HPE breach highlights a brutal reality for every business with a distributed team: your remote workforce security is only as strong as your weakest home office connection.
And those connections now directly control whether your business can operate tomorrow.
This Goes Far Beyond Just Information Security
When we talk about securing remote work, we’re talking about something far more critical than stopping hackers. We’re talking about whether your business can function at all.
When traditional security collapses in a remote work environment (as it did for HPE), it’s not just information security that suffers. It’s your business continuity.
- Operations halt when critical systems become inaccessible.
- Clients and partners lose faith as their sensitive information leaks through remote worker vulnerabilities.
- Service delivery falls apart when remote teams can’t access the tools and data they need.
The result is a nightmare for any business: work halts, money stops flowing, trust vanishes overnight, and customer experience crumbles.
The New Attack Surface Reality
Remote workforce security is complex because employees don’t just connect to your corporate network anymore. They access cloud services directly. They use SaaS applications. And they handle sensitive data across multiple networks and personal devices that you’ll never fully control.
This is a big change in how we think about security.
For decades, IT teams built stronger firewalls, hardened VPNs, and locked down networks. Today, those perimeters don’t exist.
The network boundary has evaporated. And the focus now is on securing remote work.
Attackers have noticed this shift and adapted their techniques. They’re specifically targeting remote workers through increasingly sophisticated approaches. For instance:
- Credential harvesting campaigns have increased post- COVID-19. Phishing emails specifically mention remote work, VPN access, or collaboration tools to trick employees working from home.
- Home network penetration has become a primary attack vector. Hackers compromise poorly secured home routers or IoT devices, then move laterally into work devices connected to the same network.
- Device exploitation is on the rise, and hackers are targeting personal devices that lack enterprise-grade protection. When employees use the same device for Netflix and access financial records, security suffers.
The question is, why are these attacks succeeding? Because most remote workforce security approaches still rely on extending office security tools to remote environments rather than building security models designed for remote work.
Implementing Zero-Trust Architecture for Remote Teams
“Never trust, always verify” is the foundation of a strong digital workplace security. This principle is at the heart of zero-trust architecture (and mindset), which represents a complete rethinking of access controls for remote work environments.
The idea is simple: trust no user, device, or network by default, regardless of whether they’re inside or outside your traditional perimeter.
Validate every access request continuously, based on multiple factors before granting access to resources.
For securing remote work, this means implementing critical components:
- Continuous identity verification systems. G o beyond username and password to include contextual signals like location, device health, and behavior patterns.
- Granular access controls. Provide users with just enough access to do their jobs to limit potential damage from compromised accounts.
- Session-based authentication. Require users to revalidate for elevated access, rather than granting unlimited access after initial authentication.
This approach maps well to remote workplaces, where network location is no longer a meaningful trust signal.
How to Implement Zero-trust
Implementing zero-trust isn’t a one-step process. Companies succeeding with zero-trust for remote teams follow a phased approach.
Phase 1: Identity foundation. Start by implementing strong multi-factor authentication for all users and applications. This provides immediate protection against credential-based attacks without major infrastructure changes.
Phase 2: Device assessment. Deploy endpoint management tools that verify device security posture before granting access to resources. This ensures that only safe devices connect to your environment.
Phase 3: Access segmentation. Implement micro-segmentation of networks and applications to limit lateral movement. This contains potential breaches and limits damage.
Phase 4: Continuous verification. Add real-time monitoring and analytics to detect anomalous behavior and automatically adjust access rights based on risk.
Remember, the success of your zero-trust implementation depends on balancing security with user experience. Overly intrusive security measures will drive employees to create workarounds that ultimately decrease security.
Moving from Traditional VPNs to Modern Alternatives
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) were designed for occasional remote access, not as permanent solutions for remote workforces. Traditional VPNs create more headaches than value in a secure modern digital workplace. For instance:
- Performance issues happen when all traffic routes through centralized VPN concentrators, slowing applications to a crawl during peak usage.
- Security gaps widen because VPNs typically provide network-level access rather than application-specific access. Once connected, users often get excessive network privileges.
- Scaling issues arise when supporting thousands of permanent remote workers (rather than dozens).
- User experience suffers with complex setups, disconnections, and slowdowns that frustrate remote teams.
These critical limitations have driven companies to seek VPN alternatives that align with a remote workforce environment
SASE and SSE: The New Remote Access Foundation
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Security Service Edge (SSE) are powerful architectural approaches for remote workforce security and great alternatives to VPNs.
While VPNs focus on network access, SASE and SSE focus on secure access to applications and data, regardless of location.
SASE combines network security functions with wide-area network capabilities to support the dynamic secure access needs of organizations. Key components include:
- Cloud-native architecture that delivers security services from the edge, close to remote users for better performance.
- Integrated security services including—CASB, SWG, and ZTNA— delivered on a single platform rather than as separate point products.
- Identity-based policies that follow users regardless of which network or device they use to connect.
This approach also reduces complexity, not to mention the massive management overhead compared to multiple point solutions.
ZTNA Deployment: From Concept to Reality
Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) serves as the foundation for securing remote work. It replaces VPN access by providing precise application-level access without exposing your entire network.
Successful ZTNA deployment requires several key steps:
- Mapping your application landscape. Identify all apps that remote workers need to access, including internal apps, legacy systems, and cloud resources.
- Defining access policies. Create granular policies based on user identity, device health, and business requirements rather than network location.
- Implementing identity integration. Connect your ZTNA solution with existing identity providers to leverage current authentication systems.
- Deploying agent-based or agentless solutions. Agent-based ZTNA works best for managed devices, while agentless approaches support BYOD scenarios.
- Phasing your rollout. Begin with non-critical applications and gradually expand to sensitive systems as you validate the approach.
Endpoint Management That Scales
Your security only works if it covers every device accessing your data. With remote work, that challenge quickly multiplied. Overnight.
This is why smart endpoint security focuses on outcomes, not control.
And this means balancing protection with usability. It also means building a system that works across both corporate and personal devices without driving your remote workforce crazy.
What Modern Endpoint Management Looks Like
Modern endpoint management must deliver several capabilities:
- Unified visibility across all devices accessing corporate resources, regardless of ownership or location.
- Automated compliance verification to ensure devices meet security requirements before accessing sensitive data.
- Remote remediation capabilities to address security issues without requiring physical access to devices.
The key shift is moving your focus from device control to remote workforce security outcomes.
Rather than trying to lock down every aspect of every device, ensure the security of corporate data (regardless of which device accesses it).
EDR and MDR: Detection and Response at Scale
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) has become essential for remote workforce security. Unlike traditional antivirus software that only blocks known threats, EDR detects suspicious behavior that indicates potential compromise.
For remote teams, EDR provides critical capabilities:
- Real-time threat detection across all endpoints, even those outside your network perimeter.
- Automated containment of compromised devices to prevent lateral movement.
- Forensic data collection for incident analysis without physical access to devices.
Many organizations are augmenting EDR with Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services to address the skills gap in security operations.
MDR provides 24/7 expert monitoring and response capabilities, which are crucial when incidents occur outside your regular business hours.
But to implement it effectively, you need careful planning, so you can avoid overwhelming your security teams with alerts while still detecting genuine threats.
Remote Patching and Vulnerability Management
Traditional patching often relies on devices being connected to the corporate network. This no longer matches reality.
Instead, more modern approaches focus on:
- Cloud-based patch management that doesn’t require VPNs.
- User-friendly update experiences that don’t hurt productivity.
- Auto-compliance verification to identify systems that fall behind on critical updates.
- Risk-led system to address the most critical vulnerabilities first.
The goal here isn’t 100% patch compliance, but reducing your vulnerability window for critical systems and maintaining a baseline security level across all endpoints.
Is Your Organization Secured for the Future?
Digital workplace security (and threats) will continue to evolve rapidly. And that’s why companies focusing solely on today’s threats will find themselves behind the curve.
No wonder forward-looking security leaders are preparing for emerging challenges. Because:
- AI-powered attacks will make social engineering more convincing. And so, security awareness must evolve beyond “don’t click links” to nuanced behavioral training.
- Supply chain vulnerabilities will increase as organizations interconnect with partners. That’s why 3P risk management becomes a core security function, not just compliance.
- The cybersecurity talent shortage will worsen, which means over reliance on automation, and the need to build security processes that don’t require rare expertise.
Resilient organizations view digital workplace security as a business enabler, not a cost center. They build security that adapts to changing work patterns, not fight them.
That’s why they’re investing in future-ready foundations like zero-trust architectures, modern access solutions, and scalable endpoint management, all critical for succeeding in a permanently hybrid world. The question is, are you keeping up?
