Increase Device Usage Flexibity

CST Limited and Pulse Secure are proud to be long-standing partners, providing clients with secure remote access solutions for their workforce for many years. These services increase productivity, offer flexibility in device usage and reinforce peace of mind that wherever their staff access company data, it is safe from a potential leak or breach.

Pulse Secure are 100% focussed on delivering secure access solutions for people, devices, things and services. For years, enterprises of every size and industry have been trusting their integrated private network, access control, virtual application delivery controllers and mobile solutions to enable secure access seamlessly in their organisations.

Every single day, the global team at Pulse Secure are innovating their products to ensure that you can dramatically boost your workers’ productivity, make a smooth and secure transition to the Cloud and ensure that your networks are protected without an extra burden on IT.

Remote access opens-up a potential ingress route for cyber threats as well as an egress path for the loss of sensitive information.  The challenge many businesses face is a rapid and urgent need to stand-up remote access for all staff, with the security aspects being de-prioritised or inadvertently overlooked.

Capacity planning can be problematic, as providing remote access for all staff at the same time for a long period will be expensive. The better option is smaller base usage option that can expand rapidly as and when needed without the long-term committal cost. This is embodied in the ICE “In Case of Emergency” feature of the Pulse solution.

Remote Access Solutions

Below are a few suggestions on standing up a remote access solution and why we recommend Pulse:

1. A Clientless VPN is the most adaptable as it means staff are not tied to a specific laptop, pc or mobile device. As long as they have a working web browser, then they can remotely access network resources.
   
   
2. A Client based VPN will bring the most similar experience to working “as if in the office”, with the least amount of disruption. However, this lacks the flexibility of point 1 above. A solution that can offer both 1 and 2 is the best option for meeting all of an organisation’s needs with the flexibility to swap between the two choices.
   
   
3. The security of the remote host device needs to be free from threats and in a safe state, so as to ensure that the remote host machine does not compromise the Corporate LAN. It’s a good practice to pre-validate host remote device at the time of connection: Example - checking that the remote host has active anti-virus, up-to-date security patches and is not simultaneously connecting to another internet resources.
   
   
4. The policy regarding what and where data can be accessed also needs specific decisions. Example: if you use the clientless VPN (option 1) and do not apply usage controls, you could find yourself in a position where sensitive business information is copied to a non-corporate asset, which is unprotected and unmanaged.