In recent years, the number of external accesses to the digital corporate infrastructure has increased significantly. Home offices, network-based supplier communications and online customer accounts mean that external people are increasingly interacting with your company's IT alongside your employees. 

In addition to many advantages such as faster order processing, flexible working hours and energy savings, this also brings problems. Together with the number of digital accesses, the frequency of cybercrime and data theft has unfortunately also increased.

A Secure Remote Access Solution allows you to manage your access centralized securely. In this way, you can contain the dangers of digitization and sufficiently secure your company's digital infrastructure. 

In this article we will show you how remote secure access works, how to find the right software and the differences between commonly used solutions RDP, VPN and PAM.

How-to: Establish secure remote access in your company

Secure Remote Access software helps you manage your remote access centralized and protect it from unauthorized use. To implement such a solution in your company, you first need to know how a Secure Access Solution works. 

How does a Secure Remote Access solution work? 

The functionality of a Secure Remote Access Solution can be explained more clearly with an example. For this purpose, we would like to refer to VISULOX - our Privileged Access Management solution: 

• To better control and protect the many accesses by customers, employees and suppliers, you can use a Secure Remote Access Solution. First, all external persons are excluded from use for this purpose. 
• Following this, a central access point to the IT and OT infrastructure is created via which all external persons must enter. Access to the IT and OT is now only possible via this central node. 
• As the next step, you as the responsible person in the company have the option from now on to grant entry or exclude the respective person depending on the access right granted.
• The software then independently takes care of access management and keeps a log of which person has used their IT or OT infrastructure, for what reason and with what access rights. 
• You can distribute individual Secure Remote Access Options. This means that you can give individuals (for example, your external employees) more access rights than your customers or suppliers. 
• You also have the option of using Secure Remote Access Solutions for Cloud. Accordingly, you'll be able to manage accesses when they affect your cloud infrastructure. In this way, you'll be able to ensure the security of all important corporate accesses. 

However, you should make sure that the relevant people are not granted too many access rights in order to avoid the risk of unauthorized access. Distribute too few rather than too extensive rights according to the "least privilege principle", as you can easily extend them afterwards.

Why is Secure Remote Access Management important? 

Secure Remote Access Management allows you to digitally control access rights. Implementing a Secure Remote Access Solution therefore brings several benefits:

What Secure Remote Access Solutions are there & what are the differences?

Solutions to remote access security problems are in demand among enterprises. In this section, we would like to present the three most important approaches for Secure Remote Access: 

• RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol)
• VPN (Virtual Private Network)
• PAM (Privileged Access Management)  

Remote Desktop Protocol: foreign access to your work computer

The so-called RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) allows you to access your work computer from outside. You can use it to control the PC at your workplace from any location and thus move around in your company's local network. 

The advantage of this method is encrypted remote access, which allows you to control and manage a PC that is located in the company. This means that employees can securely access confidential information from the home office, for example, without third parties being able to view the data.

However, there are also disadvantages to using RDP: 

1. You can enable encrypted external access with an RDP, but you cannot control or manage it. For this reason, RDPs can still be used as a gateway for cybercrime in the form of a hacker attack. 
2. The access rights cannot be adjusted individually. Therefore, you cannot grant different access rights to different external employees. With RDP, you can only allow complete control of the PC or none at all.
3. In addition, this tool is only for external employees and workers in the home office, but not for suppliers and customers who also need to access the infrastructure increasingly. 

Virtual Private Network: Private communication in your company

By setting up a VPN connection (Virtual Private Network), you can communicate with your company's intranet securely and invisibly to third parties. By connecting to a VPN server, communication is routed and encrypted. 

The advantage of a VPN connection is that you and your employees can access your company's intranet regardless of location and transmit data securely and encrypted. However, there are also some points that are problematic with a VPN connection: 

1. Your ability to manage and control access is limited. The more detailed you want to distribute access rights, the more inefficient and slow the connection becomes. In addition, you have no central way to control, limit, or extend access rights. 
2. The VPN connection hides the transfer of data not only from strangers, but also from you. Accordingly, you have no insight into who takes what data from the company and what data reaches your company. 
3. Buying VPN connections for each user individually is very expensive. After all, you have to equip every single employee, supplier, etc. with a VPN connection. This makes scaling difficult and stands in the way of developments such as the growth of home offices. 
4. In addition, the multitude of VPN connections is complex and confusing. This means that you always have to keep track of the various licenses and expiration dates.
5. VPN infrastructures secure the data transmission itself, but they do not check whether the data itself is secure. Infected work devices can transmit viruses or ransomware and thus endanger the IT infrastructure.  

Privileged Access Management: Individualized access for a secure enterprise

What is PAM? The so-called Privileged Access Management (PAM) helps you to establish a central access point for the IT structures in your company and to distribute individualized access rights from there. You can even equip on-premises software infrastructures with a secure remote access solution in this way. 

This precise assignment of access rights to employees, customers and suppliers is the greatest advantage of PAM. 

With PAM, you have the option of giving each employee exactly the access rights they need. This assignment ensures that no unauthorized persons access your confidential data. 

In addition, you are able to scan the transferred data with the PAM software, as well as define fixed rules for the data traffic. This way, you ensure that no malware or ransomware damages your digital infrastructure. 

Thus, PAM is the most comprehensive and mature solution if you want to manage your access securely and centralized - whether data leaves your company or is uploaded. 

Secure Remote Access Architecture: What does a secure IT environment look like? 

You can use the three solution approaches RDP, VPN and PAM both individually and in combination in your company. In our experience, however, you can avoid using VPN by using PAM because it combines the advantages of the other two concepts.

Instead of confusing solutions, with PAM you rely on central access management and often even have to pay less for the installation. See for yourself and arrange a free demo with our experts.

However, the prerequisite for this is that you find the right provider. Only then can you ensure that your PAM security solution adequately protects your IT infrastructure. 

How do I find the right Secure Remote Access software? 

With the support of the right provider, implementing a secure remote access solution is easy. In some cases or on request, many providers even take over the integration, so that you can access the solution after a short time and without much effort. 

When choosing the right software or provider, you should pay attention to the following:

1. Customizability: Every company is different and places different demands on the software. An off-the-shelf solution is therefore not a perfect fit for your company. That is why we follow a simple philosophy with VISULOX: The software should adapt to your company and not vice versa!
2. Central access: Secure Remote Access is efficient when the software gives you a direct and quick overview of the managed areas and accesses. We therefore provide you with a central portal in which you can keep track of all external service providers, employees and customers. 
3. Data control: Trojans and viruses usually enter your company via uploads and uncontrolled data sharing. A good Secure Remote Access solution should therefore allow you to control the data flow in your company. With VISULOX, you can define yourself what kind of data may be transferred to your company or whether and how it must be checked in advance. 
4. Cloud access: It is not only large companies that often offer cloud services. If your company also uses the cloud for data storage or other purposes, you should also protect and manage these accesses. Accordingly, your PAM software should be a cloud secure remote access solution that also enables protection of your cloud accesses. 

From Secure Remote Access VPN to PAM Solution: Take the Next Step

For a long time, Secure Remote Access VPN solutions or RDP were the most secure mechanisms for remote access. However, due to the high cost and obscurity of Secure Remote Access VPN in your network software, it is no longer the best solution.

Instead, PAM offers you a fully comprehensive and customizable solution that protects your corporate infrastructure from the dangers of third-party access. The comprehensive benefits of Privileged Access Management simply eliminate the need for additional tools. 

So if you are still relying on VPN & Co, it's time to take the next step for your IT security with a PAM solution. 

Introduce Privileged Secure Remote Access to your company with VISULOX from amitego

With VISULOX, amitego's Secure Remote Access solution, we pursue three main goals: 

• Increase security: To optimize the security of our software, we apply the just-in-time method. This means that accesses are only open when necessary. For this purpose, you can, for example, define core working hours, release certain IP addresses or specify a four-eyes principle. Secure Remote Access Management allows you to tailor these precautions precisely to your requirements.  
• Accelerate implementation: To help you as quickly as possible and increase your IT security, we focus on a high implementation speed. You usually receive a feasibility analysis (proof of concept) after just three days and can fully use VISULOX Secure Remote Access after another day.
• Save your budget: Using numerous security solutions in your company is not only confusing, but also expensive. That's why we at amitego have focused on offering a comprehensive solution at a reasonable price. In this way, you increase your company's security while saving your budget.  

Convince yourself and arrange a free demo without obligation. We will show you how our Secure Remote Access Tool works and answer your questions. 

We also offer a complete Secure Remote Network Access service. This includes the installation of the software in your company to make it available for all employees, suppliers and customers in your network.  

With VISULOX you protect your company efficiently against unauthorized foreign accesses

Digital access offers many opportunities and can facilitate work processes in your company. With amitego's PAM solution, you can take advantage of these opportunities without being at the mercy of cybercrime and data theft. 

Rely on amitego and VISULOX to manage your access centralized, securely and easily. We install our Secure Remote Access solution in your company in a short time, helping you to strengthen IT security and control data transfer. 

Convince yourself and arrange a non-binding initial meeting. We are looking forward to you and your inquiry!