Disclaimer: As I write this at 5am, please note that I’m groggy and still working on my first cup of Joe. Grammar and spelling are not the priority for this post… 🙂

We’ve all, heard about it. We’ve all seen the empty shelves and the strange madness that seems to come with panic. We’ve seen how the public is responding to all the media about Covid-19 and we’re beginning to see how the government is responding to the outbreaks. There have been quite a few articles that point out the ideas of working from home and a handful more telling us that the internet will crash and burn from all of the extra bandwidth being taken up. But have you considered what it would take to work from home and whether your business network is up to the task?

There are a lot of different ways to get to your data from an external location. Normally we focus on stopping external connections to our networks, but now we’re faced with trying to safely open the doors and allow a select few in. So, what ways can we get to our data without compromising it at the same time? Here are just some of the general ideas that companies use.

Lets start with some of the built in tools. If you use Windows Professional then there is already the beginnings of a solution built into your computer. It has a feature that can be enabled called Remote Desktop Protocol or RDP for short. RDP provides one of the best remote experiences out of all of the solutions. It is robust in many areas allowing you to copy files back and forth, print to a local printer, use the clipboard between the remote and local machines and even provides sound from the remote machine. But the technology has been around for a long time and has become a favorite attack vector for the bad guys. If you want to use RDP then there are some general precautions that need to be taken, such as strong passwords and fully updated computers. Still, one of the major requirements for RDP to work is that you forward a port on your firewall to the specific machine that will receive the connections. This can open the door for attackers to test your RDP setup with automated programs that can try to login tens of thousands times a day. Another downfall is that without a special server, RDP will only allow a single user to connect at a time.

Next on the list would be connections with Virtual Private Networks or VPNs. A VPN can be a great way to allow your employees to access data from a remote location. The connections are usually encrypted and can require multiple forms of authentication. There are vulnerabilities in VPNs, but in general they are still far more secure than a basic RDP session. What is better is that you can use a VPN to get into your network and then use RDP inside of the VPN to remote control a machine. Great, this must be the solution to go with! Well, the general downfalls are that it is usually more costly and complicated to setup. With complexity comes additional time for configuration.

So what’s next? Well there are a host of programs that provide remote connectivity through a service based webhost. What am I talking about? You might have heard of programs called Team Viewer, or ShowMyPC, or GoToMyPC, or LogMeIn? All of these provide some form of remote connectivity and may provide additional features such as screen sharing to groups for meetings. What they do provide is a machine to machine connection from your home to your work computer. They are generally efficient to use but most of these do have a monthly cost. I have found one of these that is currently free for use.

MSP360 ( https://www.msp360.com/remote-assistant.aspx ) can provide remote connectivity to a work computer. The software needs to be installed on both the remote and local machines to work. The software isn’t as robust as some of the paid subscriptions but it does appear to be functional. And considering the cost, it just may be what helps keep a business above water during this time of stress.

Note that I do not endorse or guarantee any of the software listed in this post. I simply chose to share information. If you are interested in using any of the methods listed here, or have other ideas and would like help implementing them, please let me know and we can discuss your specific needs.