3 Best Practices for Secure Remote Work

Article updated on 03/06/26

Common security risks associated with remote work include unsecured Wi-Fi networks, phishing scams, weak passwords, and personal device usage. Unsecured Wi-Fi can expose corporate data to unauthorized access, while personal devices often lack the security protocols required by company policy.

The organizations that manage this well are not the ones with the most restrictive policies – they are the ones with the most coherent ones. They have aligned their security controls, their training programs, and their technology stack around a single operational reality: the perimeter is gone, and the endpoint is everywhere. The three best practices for secure remote work are:

1. Establish a written remote work security policy.

2. Invest in security awareness training — not just generic onboarding.

3. Deploy the right technology stack for secure remote work: VPNs, MFA, endpoint management, and more.

What follows explains how to implement each one.

Build a Remote Work Security Policy That Actually Gets Followed

A remote working security policy is a formal document that defines the rules, tools, and responsibilities employees must follow to protect company data when working outside the office. Remote work opens the door to many unknowns. To protect your business, your clients, and your staff’s data, a well-documented plan with policies and procedures for access management, security training, data protection, and password protection should be outlined.

Remember: a remote working security policy is about making sure people can be successful at their jobs, while also keeping the company protected from unidentified threats. Consider adding the points below in your remote working security policy.

• Employees — Avoid public Wi-Fi networks: If employees do not have remote offices with secure home connections, alternative options are to use company hotspots (if they have access to a company cell phone) or an approved VPN.

• Employees — Only use your work computer for work: To prevent any potential liability issues or security threats that may occur, stress the importance of only using work computers for work-related tasks. Personal business (emails, booking flights, etc.) should be done from personal devices. When employees use personal devices for work — a common BYOD scenario — IT teams lose visibility into whether those devices meet minimum security standards.

  A formal BYOD policy should specify device enrollment requirements, acceptable use boundaries, and the minimum security controls (such as screen lock, encryption, and approved applications) that any device must meet before accessing corporate systems. Endpoint management tools can extend IT visibility to both managed and unmanaged devices, giving teams the oversight they need without requiring employees to surrender personal privacy.

• Employees — Mind your devices: Be aware of your surroundings when using company technology. Don’t leave devices (computers, tablets, phones) unlocked and unattended. When leaving a room, be sure to lock a device and bring it with you or secure the room so no one can enter while you’re away.

• Employees — Use strong, unique passwords: Weak or reused passwords remain one of the most exploited vulnerabilities in remote work environments. Employees should use a password manager to generate and store complex, unique credentials for every account. IT teams should enforce minimum password complexity standards and audit credential hygiene as part of regular security reviews.

• Employees — Report suspected incidents immediately: When a remote worker suspects their device has been compromised, lost, or stolen, every minute matters. The policy should define a clear escalation path: who to contact, what information to provide, and what the employee should do in the interim (such as disconnecting from the network). IT teams should be configured to respond to remote security incidents through ITSM ticketing workflows that triage and prioritize these events — and should have the capability to remotely lock or wipe a device before data is compromised.

Invest in Security Awareness Training – Not Just Generic Onboarding

Shared knowledge is the foundation of a successful company—especially when staff is located across the country or globe. Security awareness training is one of the highest-ROI investments an IT organization can make — and one of the most frequently underfunded. The reason is simple: most breaches do not start with a technical vulnerability. They start with a human one.

A well-designed training program for remote workers should cover at minimum: how to recognize phishing and spear-phishing attempts, the correct procedure for reporting a suspected incident, safe handling of sensitive data outside the corporate network, and the specific risks of public Wi-Fi and personal device use.

Delivery format matters as much as content. Training that is long, infrequent, and passive – a 45-minute annual compliance video – does not change behavior. Short, scenario-based modules delivered regularly, combined with simulated phishing exercises that test real-world responses, have consistently demonstrated higher retention and faster incident reporting rates.

When evaluating platforms to host and distribute this content, prioritize those that integrate with your existing ITSM workflows so that training completion, compliance status, and incident reports are visible in a single operational view — not scattered across disconnected systems.

The Right Technology Stack for Secure Remote Work: VPNs, MFA, Endpoint Management, and More

There’s no avoiding the use of technology in this current climate, every company requires it. Specifics can vary based on the type of work you do, the number of employees you have, the number of clients you serve, and where you work; but regardless, technological solutions do impact every business. This is even more relevant for companies that allow remote work (both full and part-time). The following tools and resources should be considered for your tech stack to continue working securely with client and company data.

• Virtual Private Networks (VPNs): A VPN encrypts data in transit and masks a user’s IP address, which protects against interception on unsecured networks – a critical control when employees are working from home networks or public locations. However, a VPN is one layer of protection, not a complete security posture. It does not enforce MFA, manage endpoint compliance, or give IT teams visibility into device health. It works best as part of a broader, layered security architecture. CISA’s remote access security guidance recommends VPNs as a baseline control for organizations supporting distributed workforces.

• Endpoint Management: Endpoint management is the process by which IT teams monitor, update, and control the devices — laptops, phones, and tablets — that connect to a company’s network. Endpoint management provides IT teams with the oversight they need over employee devices and access to company information when working remotely. For organizations managing hundreds or thousands of remote endpoints, manual oversight is not scalable – endpoint management is the operational foundation that makes secure remote work viable at enterprise scale.

• Automated Patch Management: Unpatched devices are among the most exploited attack vectors in remote work environments. When employees operate outside the corporate perimeter, the responsibility for keeping software current cannot rely on manual checklists or user initiative. IT teams need automated mechanisms to enforce update compliance across distributed endpoints – pushing patches, validating installation, and flagging devices that fall out of compliance before they become a liability. This includes regular vulnerability scans to identify weaknesses in remote access configurations before they can be exploited.

• Remote Monitoring: Using remote monitoring, IT departments can manage their networks in real time—streamlining health and performance checks— to reduce downtime and provide proactive support.

• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): MFA requires users to verify their identity through two or more independent methods — something they know (a password), something they have (an authenticator app or hardware token), or something they are (biometric verification). This distinction matters: two-factor authentication (2FA) is a subset of MFA that uses exactly two factors, while MFA can require more. Microsoft’s published security research indicates that MFA blocks over 99.9% of account compromise attacks – making it one of the highest-impact, lowest-cost controls available to IT teams. Common implementation methods include authenticator apps (such as Microsoft Authenticator or Google Authenticator), hardware tokens, and SMS codes. IT governance teams should enforce MFA compliance across all remote access points, including VPN connections and cloud application logins, and use endpoint management platforms to monitor adherence across distributed devices.

• Password Management Tools: Enterprise-grade password managers give employees a secure, IT-governed way to generate, store, and use strong, unique credentials across every account – eliminating the reuse patterns that make credential-stuffing attacks so effective. For IT teams, centrally managed password solutions provide audit trails, enforce complexity standards, and reduce the help desk burden of password reset requests. In distributed workforces where IT cannot physically oversee every login, a password manager is a practical, scalable control that closes one of the most common attack vectors in remote work environments.

Secure remote work is not a project with a completion date, it is an ongoing operational discipline. The organizations that manage it most effectively are not necessarily the ones with the largest security budgets; they are the ones that have built coherent systems: clear policies that employees actually follow, training programs that change behavior rather than check a compliance box, and technology controls that give IT teams real-time visibility across every endpoint.

The practical challenge for most IT leaders is integration – ensuring that endpoint management, identity verification, monitoring, and incident response are not five separate tools generating five separate data streams, but a unified operational picture. That is where the foundation of a mature ITSM and ITOM platform becomes not just useful, but essential. If your current stack is creating more noise than signal, that is usually the right moment to reassess whether your tools are working together or simply coexisting.

For those looking for a powerful ITSM and ITOM service management solution to address many of the issues addressed above, EasyVista should be at the top of your list.