How to conduct secure remote support
In today’s business world, the enterprise network can be extended to anywhere thanks to working remotely, business travels, and cloud adoption — remote support from IT department has become an essential requirement.
People are asking: is remote support safe? The answer is that without proper security measurement, remote support can be very vulnerable. This is because remote support is usually done by IT personnel from a privileged account, and the power associated with a privileged account usually means more risks if those accounts are compromised or if no proper security solution is in place.
Secure remote support needs to be done with the consideration of privileged access management and secure remote access.
Since remote support is basically event-driven, it also needs to be lightweight and efficient.
Here are the requirements for a secure remote support solution:
- A zero-trust philosophy needs to be followed.
- Multi-factor authentication must be supported.
- The authorization needs to be granted for the support work and if a password is used, the password needs to be automatically generated and discarded after use to avoid leakage.
- Role-based access must be supported especially if third-party contractors need to work on the system. No domain credentials need to be given out
- Access is granted on the least privileged basis and granular control is preferred
- The support session must be ephemeral.
- The support session can be fully managed. Necessary approval and notification can be sent out to manage the session. The session can be stopped immediately if necessary.
- The support session needs to be recorded for audition and monitoring purposes.
Collabshield’s zero-trust collaboration workspace is a SaaS-based solution that provides secure remote support and integrates privileged access management (PAM) and secure remote access, meeting all the requirements above.
This workspace can be created on-demand and provides a rich set of tools to facilitate collaboration. More importantly, it builds a zero-trust security boundary for remote IT support needs, which is a perfect fit for both internal IT support personnel and outside contractors to conduct support work.
The SaaS service solves the secure remote support need without invoking a cumbersome VPN and is secure, efficient, and powerful.