Microsoft Office 365

What do we need to consider?

• Internal/external use

  Do you want to offer remote access support to your end users, external users or do you need to get support from external consultants? Defining the scope of users is important as you might increase security if connections need to be made over a public network such as the internet.

  If external consultants need access to your systems, you need to plan on how much access you want them to have. If you want to provide/control the point of access and how flexible the solution should be this is of utmost importance.

  For internal users that you need to help, consider how easily you can access their system and if this requires input from the user each time. If you support users that work from other offices and perhaps from home, where no direct connection could be established, then online sessions could be the choice of service.

• Security

  The main thing we need to consider is, of course, the security aspect. Both if you do or do not provide and manage the remote access solution yourself you need to evaluate the level of access delegated to external support staff. Before accepting remote support from external consultants please evaluate the following and related questions:

  Secure Authentication
  The remote user must be authenticated according to your company. Smart Card or certificate authentication with a password when establishing the connection is recommended for user identification. If normal credentials are used please have a good password policy or combine this with two-factor authentication.
  Secure Connection
  Is the connection securely encrypted so no other person can get access to your information?
  Access level
  Can the remote party access more resources than needed?
  Is network access needed and to what scope of IP addresses/ports?
  File transfer
  Is it possible to transfer files to/from your company network through the connection?
  Continuing access
  When your current support session has ended, is it possible for the remote party to establish connection again?

  In the solutions with network access, file transfer and access to remote local drives, you should be aware that worms and viruses have the possibility to infect your computers and servers. Screen sharing could be an excellent way of protecting you infrastructure both for internal and external users. As the customer you need to inform the remote party about the security requirements they need to follow.

• Connection establishment

  The next thing you need to examine is how the IT support staff connects to the destination computer/network. On internal computers you might want to connect to a computer/server with or without user interaction. For external consultant access, you will require some kind of interaction, control and logging of connections to your network infrastructure. If random support to or from other people can occur whilst they are on the phone, then I suggest an online session screen sharing with one-time passwords.