Remotely Accessing Sensitive Resources

It is a fact of life that most companies' workforces are becoming increasingly mobile. Because of this, vast amounts of sensitive data are exposed to unauthorized access and misuse through loss, theft, or confiscation of portable devices. This represents a very serious problem for companies. A common approach to dealing with this threat has been to use encryption to protect the data, but this alone does not guarantee that the data will not be compromised or negate the consequences of breaches of confidentiality. Additionally, data encrypted at rest must be decrypted so that it can be worked with, which exposes it to malware and network-based attacks. Using well-documented technologies that individual users can implement, such as SSH, remote desktop applications, and USB storage devices, sensitive data can instead be kept on network accessible workstations or servers. The implementation of these technologies is adaptable to suit a wide range of environments and needs while protecting data from network and local threats. With these strategies, local copies of data are not necessary so loss of a device exposes nothing.