Remote Connections

Employees working from home and while on the road often need access to long documents, spreadsheets, streaming video, and other large files. The remote connections that facilitate the ability of employees to work remotely are a benefit to the organization. The drawback is that remote connections can also be accessed by authorized intruders. Intruders gaining access to a user's system can steal private information stored on the system, launch denial-of-service attacks, or cause the system to distribute pirated software. Intruders have placed programs on computers operated by both organizations and home users with high-speed Internet connections and relatively little security. The planted programs have mounted denial-of-service attacks against other sites, sending messages at a rate too high for the sites to handle, and thus disrupting the organization's communications. Security tools, policies, and access rights have to be established so that the need for employee's access to information is balanced against the need to protect the organization's information assets from intrusion.