Mark Hubbard, managing director of WifiMaps, says the threat is real but he has the panacea.
While the threat landscape has steadily evolved in recent years as more sophisticated hackers find ways to infiltrate networks, the Covid-19 pandemic has shifted gear dramatically – and that acceleration is causing huge security problems for businesses, large and small.
For example, in May a group calling itself REVil shut down UK power administrator Elexon after breaching a vulnerability in its Virtual Private Network (VPN). It then offered the stolen data, including passports and financial records, for auction to the highest bidder on the dark web. Elexon’s role in the power supply chain is critical for keeping the lights on in UK homes and businesses, but this vital cog in the energy industry was wholly unprepared for the attack despite repeated warnings about its VPN vulnerability.
In March, Elexon reported it had been running an unpatched VPN server, the type of unpatched VPN increasingly targeted by malicious cyber actors. This weakness was eventually exploited by REVil, highlighting how vulnerable businesses are now they have an army of remote workers connected to often insecure corporate networks.
More VPN licences; more bandwidth
Mark Hubbard, managing director of WifiMaps, recently warned an audience of IT security experts about the security implications of home working – and the inherent weaknesses of VPNs.
“With the huge increase in remote workers, the overall attack surface has significantly increased for most businesses,” he said. “Consequently, most companies need to buy more VPN licences for their employees, along with more bandwidth.
“But this comes at a cost and service providers are already booked up for months. Without that bandwidth, the network becomes choked and home workers simply flip off the corporate VPN because it’s too slow.”
Flip off the corporate VPN
While VPNs have been championed by many IT departments as a temporary solution to remote working, there clearly needs to be a long-term solution. This is particularly the case when people at home are prepared to “flip off the corporate VPN” to use their own insecure home Wi-Fi connections. Home routers are often insecure and not patched to an adequate security level and as the UK’s remote workforce has grown from 20% to more than 80% in the past three months, this is a problem that’s not going away any time soon.
Often added costs are the reason why home workers lack access to VPNs. As Hubbard points out: “More VPNs equals more costs. They are generally charged by the user, which means many organisations have a limited number of VPN connections available to staff and any additional employees are therefore accessing corporate data from their unprotected networks.”
At a corporate level VPNs are also considered part of the 24/7 infrastructure and businesses are less likely to keep on top of the latest patches. Hence, you have the Elexon example where the company was running an outdated version of an enterprise VPN service despite repeated warnings.
Sustainability for the right results
Technology has to work at a sustainable level to deliver results and, ultimately, the remote working experiment will only be as successful as the infrastructure that supports it.
Most businesses have built networks with physical connectivity in mind and they aren’t designed to support a remote workers. But IT teams now have to deal with a huge spike in traffic on VPNs and network appliances. These problems will escalate with the surge of the use of cloud applications and the pressure on servers, storage and networks. It’s never been more necessary for IT departments to support remote working and very often IT teams have been ill prepared for it.
Dome for Home’
Nevertheless, Hubbard has the answer to these problems: “‘Dome for Home’ is a very timely device given the huge increase in cyberattacks on remote workers that have occurred during the Covid-19 lockdown.
“This device offers employees protection from cyberattacks while working on their home network by monitoring traffic, identifying attacks and reporting them to corporate IT for remediation
“With the centrally managed ‘Dome’ we ensure attacks are dealt with quickly and carry out a risk analysis of that home network to look for rogue APs and badly configured access points. We’ll even look at household ‘Internet of Things’ devices such as your WiFi-connected fridge and Alexa.”
According to Hubbard, if your network is breached while working from home the ‘Dome’ can even detach you from the network to protect the data on your devices.
“Your corporate IT can then begin forensic investigations to expose the process of the breach and all the necessary security measures can be implemented to plug the gap.”
With the huge social and commercial experiment that is remote working now happening across the country, ensuring networks are secure from attack will be key for business survival. VPNs can ensure a modicum of security but, as we’ve seen, they’re not without their vulnerabilities and commercial drawbacks. The ‘Dome for Home’ may just be the key for future remote working as we all get used to the next normal.