Supporting a remote or hybrid workforce is creating new security headaches for businesses around the globe. In The Digital Identity Tracker, Gerard Keating, chief technology officer of remote employment platform Globalization Partners, says the one-two security punch of biometrics and limited privileges is the way to stay safe.
The restrictions and stay-at-home mandates caused by the pandemic forced many businesses to rethink their workflows last year, and many CEOs quickly adopted a remote work model to avoid substantial loss of revenue.
The shift to remote work is here to stay, according to Gerard Keating, chief technology officer at Boston-based remote employment services platform Globalization Partners. Although some pandemic-related restrictions have relaxed, many staff members continue to work from home indefinitely. Keating explained to PYMNTS in an interview how the company’s platform allows its corporate clients to set up onboarding, benefits and contracts easily for their remote workers.
“It’s really critical for [business] customers of [Globalization Partners] and [businesses] in general that are going remote to ensure that they have locally compliant contracts and offer really competitive benefits in different countries,” he said. “Team members come in and, through an automated self-service workflow, can sign up for the benefits [and] sign their contracts right within the platform.”
Employers who choose to remain remote or incorporate a hybrid schedule for their employees need to equip them with the tools to succeed. These include developing an online platform on which onboarding and human resources tasks can be completed with minimal friction from start to finish.
Remote Employees Targeted by Bad Actors
Remote work comes with perks but also exposes businesses and their employees to security risks. Poor remote security practices, such as sharing corporate devices with family members or downloading external applications, have contributed to a measurable increase in identity fraud recorded since the pandemic began in early 2020. Companies have prioritized cybersecurity initiatives as a result. One of the major challenges a company faces when safeguarding its virtual presence, Keating said, is making sure everybody has authorization to access the necessary data.
“[We have] role-based security access as part of our platform, so we ensure that only the users have visibility into the data that they need to have and nothing more. … It’s part of our … overall data security strategy to make sure that we now are allowing access only to the data that role needs.”
This principle of restricting user access rights to only the data required for day-to-day legitimate activities also is sometimes referred to as “least privilege,” and it is a key security measure, as research suggests that more than 80% of security violations involve privileged credentials. Least privilege, in conjunction with other authentication factors such as password protection and biometrics, can limit hackers’ success.
Remote Work for a Global Workforce
Keating said he believes remote work is a way for workplaces to match global trends and that it will endure. As fraud prevention strengthens, however, bad actors get smarter. Antiquated methods of authentication and mediocre threat protection software no longer are enough to protect against tech-savvy cybercriminals. Investments in cybersecurity will continue to be a crucial part of protecting companies’ critical data for years to come as businesses expand the scope of their human resources practices to better fulfill their missions.
“The goal is to hire the best person, wherever they are, to build the best team,” he said. “We want to make sure that we allow companies, when they find the person that they’d like to hire, [to] do that very quickly and make sure that it’s compliant. We firmly believe that it’s all about hiring the best talent wherever that talent is.”
No single company is expected to implement unfamiliar technologies on its own. Industry professionals who specialize in remote-specific technology can ease companies’ anxieties concerning the recent increase in fraudulent activity, and employers also can partner with third parties to simplify friction-filled tasks such as onboarding. Such moves may seem like pricey investments in the short term, but adopting better security hygiene and onboarding automation will benefit businesses for years as the prevalence of remote work increases.
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