Great extra security layer for your remote workers

We started using the Cisco Umbrella way before the pandemics as an extra security layer to protect computers working within our internal network. That had been working really well and it's proven even more important after we had to buy laptops and send people to work from home, where we have much less control over the environment security.

We use Cisco Umbrella mostly to protect our remote endpoints. Once in a while, we receive a request to whitelist a specific website that is being blocked by Cisco Umbrella because it belongs to a specific category that we don't want our users to access but in that particular case it's needed. Other than that, it works really well and we don't usually have issues.

We tried the AD integration and that had worked fine showing AD users within the Cisco Umbrella administration interface. It fits really well along with our security suite running in conjunction with antivirus and anti-malware pieces of software. We believe that bundling software is more effective to protect computers than using a single one.

When the COVID pandemic started we had to react quickly and send users to work from home. We bought laptops for those users and installed several products to build a strong security approach and make sure our users would be safe working from a remote location. The security products we used were: an antivirus, an anti-malware, and a DNS filter (Cisco Umbrella).

There were many changes after we implemented hybrid work. The first of those was a reduction in the office, renting out part of the unused space. We have also a reduction in the monthly expenses and anything related to working in the office, like printing and even using the file server. On the other hand, we had more tickets related to remote access, especially in regard to VPN access. Other than that, we also had happier employees because of the convenience of working from home.

Before starting the hybrid work, we used our VPN access just for a few people that needed to do some specific tasks from home occasionally. Then, when we moved to that new model, we had to give every user a VPN account. We initially got concerned about the performance of our Cisco Meraki security appliance, but it has been holding fine so far. Cisco umbrella also made easy to prevent users to be redirected to malicious links, which is very good as well.

I believe that was a win-win situation, where all parts ended up being satisfied with the change. There are still some people, me including, that go to the office frequently, but many people not only work 100% from home but also moved to other provinces. With the help of cloud phones, zoom meetings, VPN connections, and good security software, I believe we were able to reach a combination where everyone got happy.

We actually used Meraki and Umbrella since the time everyone still used to go to the office, so our choice for those brands was not specifically because of the hybrid work. However, those products showed great performance and adaptability in a way that when we had to do the transition to hybrid work, they proved themselves very useful.

Umbrella plays an important role in keeping our remote clients safe from DNS-related threats, allowing our users to access websites more confidently. Setting up "Content Categories" properly also helps administrators to mitigate threats based on the topic we block (ex: Adult, Gambling, etc), once some of those are more prone to have malware embedded.

I believe that the key strategies for that are diversifying applications, creating protection layers, and doing user training. Our first layer uses Umbrella to filter what users can reach through their browser navigation, then we also added a anti-malware tool that would detect and take action if it detects malware on a website visited by the user. The last layer is having an anti-virus application that would detect viruses and clean those. Apart from that, we added all our users to a cyber security training that keeps requiring them to take courses and answer quizzes about the topics presented.


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