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NSA’s central advice is to treat legitimate remote-access software as a potential path into organizational systems: administrators should first establish what normal remote-access activity looks like, then investigate meaningful deviations; workers should use only devices, accounts, tools, and networks permitted by their employer or agency. The NSA and its co-authors published their remote-access software guidance on June 6, 2023.
Why NSA is warning about remote-access software
Remote-access software lets authorized users connect to computers or organizational resources from elsewhere. That legitimate function can also make the software attractive to cyber actors: activity from a recognized tool may blend into ordinary network traffic and be harder to distinguish from authorized use. NSA’s June 6, 2023 announcement says the joint guide addresses malicious use, common exploitations, and associated tactics, techniques, and procedures.
NSA subject matter expert Eric Chudow summarized the trade-off: “Remote access may be a useful option for many organizations, but it also could be a threat vector into their systems.” The agencies’ point is not that every remote-access product is malicious, but that organizations need to secure and understand the remote access they permit.
What system and network administrators should do
Build a baseline before looking for anomalies
The most specific first step in NSA’s announcement is to establish a baseline of normal network and software activity. Without that reference, an unusual remote connection can be difficult to distinguish from an expected one. Administrators should document the remote-access software and accounts approved for their environment, along with expected connection patterns, and use that record to assess unexpected activity. NSA describes the baseline as crucial to carrying out the guide’s mitigations.
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Investigate deviations in context
A deviation from the baseline is a reason to investigate, not by itself proof of compromise. Check whether the software, account, device, and timing fit an authorized business need, and follow the organization’s incident-response and access-control procedures when they do not. The NSA announcement supports establishing a baseline and applying mitigations; it does not, on its own, specify a universal monitoring rule or alert threshold for every organization.
Use the right technical reference for implementation
For enterprise telework and remote-access planning, NIST’s SP 800-46 Rev. 2 is a complementary technical reference aimed at security, system, and network engineers and administrators, as well as computer security program managers. Published in July 2016, it covers remote access, telework, personally owned devices, and related policy considerations. It is not an NSA publication, and its publication date matters when applying it to current environments.
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What remote workers should do
Follow your organization’s device and network rules
Use organization-owned, managed, and protected devices when your employer or agency requires or provides them. Whether a personal device or a particular network is allowed depends on your organization’s policy; do not assume that a government-issued device, for example, may be connected to any network or used for personal activity. NSA and DHS/CISA’s Telework Best Practices, dated April 29, 2020, is specifically government telework guidance, not a universal rule for every employer.
Keep work information in approved places
If your agency permits a personal device, use only its approved collaboration and file-sharing tools. Keep work material on government equipment or approved cloud services rather than forwarding work email to a personal account or saving work files to a personal device or personal cloud account. Government users should also follow agency acceptable-use and telework policies.
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Protect the device and close the session
- Install operating-system and relevant application updates and patches.
- Use the authentication method and remote-access tools approved by your organization.
- Lock the computer when stepping away, and log off remote connections when finished; the joint government sheet specifically recommends logging off at the end of the work day.
- Do not use government equipment for non-work activity where agency policy prohibits it.
How to interpret NSA’s telework resource collection
NSA’s Telework and Mobile Security Guidance is a collection of selected resources on subjects including home-network security, VPNs, multifactor authentication, mobile devices, browsing, and telework. The page says it was updated August 14, 2020, while displaying individual resources with different dates. Check the date and scope of each linked document rather than treating the collection’s update date as the publication date of every item.
The collection also describes NSA’s Top Ten Cybersecurity Mitigation Strategies as supporting network-security and risk-management discussions, based on threat-intelligence findings and cybersecurity expertise. “Top Ten” is the name of that resource, not a measured ranking or an effectiveness statistic for remote work.
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