LOCITS

Microsoft Surface. Transforming the way we work.

Paul — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 11:36:44 +0000

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Increase productivity with Microsoft Surface and mobile device management with LOCITS

Paul — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 11:30:05 +0000

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Top eight reasons for deploying Microsoft 365 on Surface Devices

Paul — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 11:20:32 +0000

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Work securely from anywhere, anytime across all your devices

Paul — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 11:01:59 +0000

Your employees expect technology to help them be productive; you need to keep your organization’s data safe.

These desires need not be incompatible. Microsoft 365 has the solutions to help you ensure that your users, devices, apps, and data are secure wherever they are accessed or used. Empower your employees to work whenever and wherever they want with solutions for identity and access management, information protection, threat protection, and security management.

Security across devices, cloud, and on-premises apps.

Identity management in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is your first step. Azure AD Single Sign-On (SSO), lets you manage authentication across devices, cloud apps, and on-premises apps. Once you enable SSO, your employees can access resources in real time on any device while working remote, including to confidential or sensitive work documents. Next, layer multi-factor authentication (MFA) with Azure AD Conditional Access by setting user policies (see Figure 1). These security tools work together to reauthenticate high-risk users and to take automated action to secure your network.

Download the Microsoft info sheet here

Download PDF

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Mobile Device Security – are you in control?

Paul — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 16:32:29 +0000

Have you questioned yourself on how secure your corporate data and operating systems are? Every year companies invest millions of pounds in firewalls, anti-virus software, training, and patching programmes to protect sensitive information. Is any of this used for your mobile network?

Most of your staff will be currently working from home and when back at work will be mobile with a computer, that computer has access to your office systems which means access to your corporate data.

We will look at the bare minimum you should carry out to keep you and your mobile devices secure.

Your Definition of Acceptable Risk?

We recommend starting with your data centre if you are securing there then why wouldn’t you secure your mobile devices from mobile threats. Extend your security from the data centre as far out as possible. You won’t be able to duplicate all of it on mobile phones; you can however extend a number of the systems to your mobile devices as follows:

Keep and maintain clear records of phone data, e.g., device serial numbers, MAC addresses, etc.
Protect your devices with remote device location and remote wipe
Ensure strong passwords are used
Ensure OS upgrades are up to date
Enable on-device encryption
Educate users about potential risks

User Behaviour

Gone are the days when companies use to provide a Blackberry, today users prefer their own devices, platform and network provider making this a far less easy to control. These vary from between IOS and Android with IOS locking down the apps a user is able to install from the app store better than Android therefore increasing mobile security.

Employee education is a strong line of defence; equally as important to those in an office environment.

Educate users about the need to use strong 6-digit passcodes/ biometric passwords to access the device. (Cyber Essentials recommends 8 or more!)
Educate users about the need to ensure OS upgrades are installed as soon as possible in order to ensure devices are best protected from known vulnerabilities in the OS.
Avoid saving passwords on the device.
Training will raise users’ awareness of suspicious behaviour, e.g. being asked to install anything on their smartphone, suspicious emails that require them to visit a website and enter credentials, etc.

Lock Down the Network

You may already lock down traffic across your network and this can also be done for staff who connect via mobile devices. Take into account your perception risk.

Ensure Bluetooth settings are turned off.
Educate users about the need to avoid publicly accessible Wi-Fi.
Turn Wi-Fi settings off and force users to use your mobile carriers’ networks
Use a VPN connection for specific apps, content or connections (although a compromised device may still pose a risk).
Force all traffic via a full tunnel VPN (although this has implications for the phone’s battery life, the user’s privacy, and your own infrastructure considerations about bandwidth, data flows and server maintenance).

Invest in a Mobile Device Security Solution

Alternatively invest in a Mobile Device Management Solution (MDM).

This can include:

Ability to prompt users to upgrade their OS.
Network threat detection.
Malware security, including whitelisting and blacklisting of applications.
Create security policies that can be applied or adapted based on the device location, or the application or network being used – flexibly adapting security settings on the go.
Install root or jailbreak detection software.
Create rules for alerts and even, where high risk is identified, device wiping.
Automated mobile device threat analytics and intelligence.
Management and administration tools and reporting.

No matter what, these devices are essential to your business productivity, so they need to be carefully managed to avoid risks and secure data. If you are ready to improve productivity and keep your data secure contact Locits, we’d love to hear from you, for a no obligation quote on how to stay secure.

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Enabling a Team to Work Remotely

Paul — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 04:45:13 +0000

What does ‘enabling a team to work remotely’ involve?

I’m not going to mention the c-word, nor am I going to mention ‘normal’ of any kind…Promise.

At one time, home or remote working was seen as an unnecessary risk for heads of IT. Fraught with danger as it conjured up dark thoughts of unknown devices, connectivity and locations. Any of which could compromise the integrity of an organisation’s infrastructure. Bring your own device, despite it sounding welcoming, was anything but for those responsible for managing IT architecture…people like me!

However, the great thing about technology – and the use of it by clever humans – means whenever there is a potential risk, then there is likely to be response or fix in production.

Now that working from a remote location has been embraced by nearly all organisations, here are some interesting ways in which it can be managed for specific roles.

Designing for specific roles

Many people can take advantage of the tools available to be able to work from home in the information age. Clearly there are benefits to be had for employees and businesses alike. But what about other roles that require a closer working relationship? They need specific set ups to enable them to work remotely too.

Frontline staff

When faced with a state of flux, in terms of information updates, the Microsoft suite comes into its own with SharePoint and Teams. These two applications allow organisations to disseminate any policy and procedure changes. This includes real time updates on customer, staff, or global changes.

The real benefit for those less familiar with working from home is the use of Teams to run daily meetings which keep people connected. Its vitally important to allow employees to participate in Q&As sessions which allows organisations to keep organised by ensuring everyone hears the same message at the same time.

Come to think of it, it’s probably a massive improvement for most businesses in terms of collaborative communication.

Call centre and help desk staff

To remain productive these users will need access to key software and diagnostic tools. Fortunately, most of these are available with the Microsoft suite or are html based. Protected by encrypted password and two-factor authentication, these tools can be accessed quickly on any device.

This enables rapid deployment for remote working whilst the IT team can work on longer term hardware solutions for those who are predicted to work remotely for an extended period. The protection of sensitive data and customer information is a primary concern. Microsoft use a range of additional services to protect their staff and systems using three authentication methods: certificate-backed virtual and physical smart cards, Windows Hello for Business (with PIN or biometric sign-in), and Azure Multi-factor Authentication.

General user identity and access

For all users managing identities it’s critical part of the process. Because of a variance in IT architecture most businesses operate hybrid environment. This helps retain and expand existing systems when using a cloud-based control panel which enables people to work productively and securely from wherever they are and on any device. Whether they are an employee, partner, or supplier, every user who needs to access the corporate network they will need some form of account synced to an Active Directory (AD).

There are of course an unlimited number of bespoke requirements required for each individual business. At LOCITS we are here to help you shape a plan and can help you form a strategy which works for your business according to your unique requirements. Contact us for more information.

Next time we will look at mobile device management and what it can do for your remote workers.

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