In January 2024, hackers exploited a critical vulnerability in Ivanti’s Connect Secure VPN, leading to emergency directives from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). This event highlighted how a single vulnerability in widely-used remote access tools can lead to massive disruption across industries. Meanwhile, global cybercrime costs are projected to reach $9.5 trillion this year. These alarming figures show why businesses must adopt dual-layered protection: combining secure business VPNs and robust cyber insurance to safeguard against evolving cyber risks.
The Rise of Remote Work and its Cybersecurity Implications
Remote Work: A Double-Edged Sword
The COVID-19 pandemic permanently transformed workplace dynamics. Today, 58% of workers operate remotely, at least part-time. However, this new normal brings increased cybersecurity risks:
- Unsecured Environments: Home networks are typically not equipped with the same security level as corporate IT systems. Suboptimal passwords on personal routers and poor encryption make them vulnerable.
- Growth in Attack Surfaces: Remote workers have access to many devices, which means there are many attack vectors at play. For example, Bring Your Device (BYOD) policies expose company data to untrusted hardware.
- Phishing and Social Engineering: Cybercriminals take advantage of remote workers’ distractions. In fact, 47% of workers admitted to being tricked by phishing because they were less focused while working from home.
The Cost of Complacency
The average cost for a data breach in which remote work was a contributing factor is $3.89 million for data breaches in office settings. In addition to financial damage, companies suffer reputational damage, face legal action, and have their activities and jobs suspended.
Emerging Threats
- Phishing Attacks: Phishing attacks continued to grow in 2024 when both phished emails to remote employees, which are compelling.
- Ransomware: Ransomware hit 66 companies in 2023 by exploiting remote endpoints as entry locations.
- Cloud Risks: Over 62% of organizations experienced events from the mismanagement of cloud assets (or misconfigurations of cloud accounts).
NordLayer’s managed secure VPN services and Mitigata’s bespoke insurance are both tailored approaches to these risks, protecting companies from technical and monetary risks.
Business VPNs: Your First Line of Defense
How VPNs Work
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) can guarantee that information communicated over the Internet is secured by encrypting Internet traffic and establishing a secure session between a client device and a server. This avoids the case where privacy information is accessible to hackers who may attack disabling Wi-Fi signals for public use or home networks.
Benefits of a Business VPN
- End-to-End Encryption: Current state-of-the-art VPNs employ advanced encryption (e.g., AES-256) for data coding at transmission.
- IP Masking: Covering up the user’s IP address, making that user more challenging to identify by the attacker.
- Secure Remote Access: This allows employees to connect to the enterprise network without presenting the enterprise with sensitive information on the open Internet.
- Compliance Support: VPNs protect customers’ sensitive data and allow adherence to regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and others.
Challenges of Traditional VPNs
While VPNs are essential, they are not without flaws:
- Broad Access Permissions: Most VPNs, when connected to the Internet, give clients access to large parts of the network environment, making them easy targets for attacks from the inside (insider attacks).
- Performance Bottlenecks: Slow speeds and outages are usual complaints among VPN users.
- Patch Management: Flaws in the clinical software implementation of VPN, for example, the Ivanti Connect Secure incident, can result in vulnerability if and when updated promptly.
NordLayer: A Secure and Modern VPN Solution
NordLayer has changed the paradigm of how a VPN is provided in the enterprise market – it presents a cloud-native service with:
- Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA): Resources are provided only as required by workers to prevent overexposure.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): It “immunizes” against unauthorized access without subsequent identity verification.
- Split Tunneling: The app tries to balance performance and security by preventing traffic from being routed outside the VPN.
With NordLayer’s strengths, it is possible to reduce the attack surface massively while minimizing the impact of loss on the productivity of the end users.
Cyber Insurance: Your Financial Backup Plan
Why is Cyber Insurance Critical?
Despite preventive measures, every system is partially foolproof. Cyber insurance offers a financial safety net for businesses to mitigate the impact of security incidents.
What Cyber Insurance Covers
- Incident Response: Covers forensic analysis, PR efforts, and customer notification.
- Regulatory Compliance: Helps with penalties under GDPR, CCPA, or HIPAA.
- Legal Fees: Covers lawsuits arising from data breaches.
- Ransom Payments: Policies sometimes necessitate ransom payments, but advisors caution against them.
- Business Interruption: Compensates for revenue lost due to downtime.
