The best free YouTube downloaders 2020: save videos the easy way
Free YouTube downloaders for saving videos in the format of your choice, ready to watch and enjoy offline.
Read More
Blog
- Home /
- Blog
When establishing a zero trust approach, don't forget to monitor VPN activity levels
As more companies embrace remote work, the zero trust approach is increasingly becoming mainstream. Created just over a decade ago by cybersecurity strategist John Kindervag, the zero trust framework mandates that users are only provided with the bare minimum level of access needed to complete their work.
This includes everyone in an organization, even those within the upper echelon of management. Despite their spots at the top of the org chart, C-suite executives need to be beholden to privileged access management. After all, their accounts are the most desirable targets for hackers, malicious insiders, and other bad actors.
- Here's our list of the best business VPN services right now
- Check out our list of the best Windows 10 VPN apps out there
- We've built a list of the best Mac VPN services available
About the author
Rajesh Ganesan is Vice President at ManageEngine
Always use the principle of least privilege and just-in-time elevation
By incorporating the principle of least privilege (PoLP), corporations can reduce their attack surface, protect sensitive corporate data, and prevent users from doing malicious or unintentional damage to applications and systems. Another important component of the zero trust framework is just-in-time privilege elevation (JIT). As its name connotes, JIT is the idea that users should only be granted elevated access to a given application or system when they need it; moreover, this access should be limited to a specific time frame, and users' privileges should be revoked as soon as possible.
VPN monitoring is key
Given that so many of us are working via remote access VPNs these days, it's vital that we engage in frequent and robust VPN monitoring. VPNs—virtual private networks that create a connection between remote users and private networks—are secured through encryption, and these networks allow data to flow through protected paths, known as VPN tunnels. In order to identify bandwidth constraints and security threats, it is important for IT personnel to engage in not only VPN traffic monitoring, but also VPN tunnel monitoring. Additionally, all user activity should be tracked, including—and perhaps, especially—the activity of C-suite users.
Focus on VPN bandwidth management, traffic monitoring, and capacity planning
With so many users accessing the network via remote access VPN, be sure to maintain the integrity of the VPN connections by tracking bandwidth usage levels. In addition to identifying high bandwidth consumption, be sure to track destination URLs, and block unwanted traffic. Moreover, it is important to monitor VPN traffic in real time, noting the number of active VPN sessions and the length of these sessions. After your organization has analyzed bandwidth trends, it's time to engage in capacity planning. This is done by establishing metrics, configuring thresholds, planning future bandwidth capacity needs, and setting up alerts.
Watch out for failed user login attempts and anomalous behavior
If your organization's VPN monitoring tool offers dashboards with user activity, be sure to share this information with the C-suite users, especially if they are responsible for failed logins. Unfortunately, some C-level employees expect to have privileged access to applications and systems at all times. If there is a record of failed logins or other anomalous activity coming from their accounts, these data points can convince him or her that no employee should be given special privileges. Besides tracking all employees, it's important to set up alerts. In the event of a failed user login attempt, security attack, virus, or some form of anomalous user behavior, these alerts should be created to ping IT personnel. Lastly, be sure to track the health of all VPN links, as well as all data transmissions across VPN tunnels.
Be sure to incorporate privileged session monitoring and privileged user behavior analytics
Through the course of your VPN monitoring, be sure to monitor all privileged sessions. With a good VPN monitoring solution, it's easy to fetch VPN logs from a firewall, and then generate traffic and security reports for C-level executives. With privileged user behavior analytics, you can make context-aware correlations, as you merge the privileged access data with your endpoint event logs; these types of correlations can be rather eye-opening. Again, sometimes, such data can also help rectify a C-level employee's misplaced notion that he or she deserves access to everything at all times.
As we continue to embrace hybrid work environments, it is important to not only engage in privileged access management best practices, such as the principle of least privilege and just-in-time privilege elevation. Since we're relying heavily on remote access VPNs, the importance of VPN monitoring cannot be understated. After all, privilege misuse is a top cyber threat. In fact, it is a rather popular favorite attack vector, as it can provide a bad actor with access to an enterprise's underbelly without raising alarms; that is, if your organization is not adequately engaged in VPN monitoring. By monitoring VPN activity levels for all employees—especially privileged users—you can be sure to keep your network safe.
- We've built a list of the best proxy services
Date
26 May 2021Sources
Other Blog
-
-
Apple facing lawsuit over its iTunes 'buy' button
A lawsuit has been brought against Apple as the company has the ability to “terminate access” to digital content purchased on iTunes.
Read More -
Microsoft Office 365 cost hike delayed for some users
Read MoreMicrosoft has decided to delay its planned price increase of Office 365 for an additional two weeks for some of its reseller partners.
Back in August of last year, the software giant announced in a blog post that its first “substantive” price increase since launching Office 365 in 2011 was set to occur on March 1 of 2022.
For those unfamiliar with Microsoft's pricing changes, Microsoft 365 Business Basic will increase from $5 to $6 per user per year, Microsoft 365 Business Premium will go from $20 to $22, Office 365 E1 will go from $8 to $10, Office 365 E3 will go from $20 to $23, Office 365 E5 will go from $35 to $38 and Microsoft 365 E3 will go from $32 to $36.
Thankfully though, pricing will not increase for consumers or Microsoft's education customers at this time but businesses that use Microsoft's office software can expect to pay quite a bit more depending on how many employees they have when they need to renew their subscriptions.
Pricing grace period
In a support document published at the end of February, Microsoft informed its reseller partners that it had created a “transitional grace period” due to high demand by businesses looking to renew their subscriptions before the company's pricing changes went into effect.
Read MoreAs a result, Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) now have until 5pm PDT on March 14 or 12am UTC on March 15 to submit transactions and have them invoiced at the software giant's February 2022 pricing. This means that the next few weeks will likely be quite busy for CSPs as businesses try to renew one last time with the old Office 365 pricing.
While Microsoft did wait over a decade to raise the price of both Office 365 and Microsoft 365, some businesses could turn to Google Workspace or other Microsoft Office alternatives following the implementation of the company's planned price increase.
- We've also highlighted the best online collaboration tools and the best hybrid working tech
Via ZDNet
-
Microsoft Outlook update will address one of the most common office frustrations
Read MoreMicrosoft is readying an update for email service Outlook that will help ensure users don’t get caught without a space ahead of an important meeting.
As per two new entries in the Microsoft 365 product roadmap, users of Outlook for iOS and Android will soon benefit from the ability to browse and reserve meeting rooms on their work phones.
“Need to book a space? Outlook Mobile is here to make your transition to hybrid work easier. Search and book conference rooms when you need to collaborate with colleagues or book a workspace when you need some time to focus,” wrote Microsoft.
The new room finder feature is currently in development across both major mobile platforms, but should roll out to all users by the end of March.
Microsoft Outlook update
As many workers begin to return to the office, at least part-time, there are bound to be a range of issues that businesses will need to iron out.
A number of collaboration software vendors are talking about challenges to do with ensuring meetings remain equitable when participants are split between the home and office. Others are concerned about equipping workers with the tools they need to remain secure and productive, no matter their working environment.
With its latest update for Outlook, Microsoft is honing in on a more practical issue: room bookings. To date, Outlook users have been required to search for available meeting rooms using the desktop app or another alternative system implemented by their company.
Read moreOnce the latest update takes effect, however, users will be given the freedom to manage room bookings on the go. This could be useful, say, if someone needs to make a last-minute booking while on the way to the office or out at lunch.
In recent months, Microsoft has announced a series of new hybrid working-related features for Outlook, including the ability to specify one’s working location on a day-by-day basis and color-coordinate the calendar to create clearer distinction between meetings.
The idea is that the new room finder feature will combine with these recent updates to improve the overall hybrid working experience for end users.
- Here's our list of the best productivity tools around
Find Out More About Us
Want to hire best people for your project? Look no further you came to the right place!