Buffer & AngelList recently released the state of remote work report. The findings all pointed to a surge in companies going remote- 63 percent of companies now have remote workers. But since that report was released, it feels like most of the world is currently working from home. That means that companies worldwide have workers signing into Slack, Instagram, HubSpot, Google Docs, and many other Cloud-based platforms on a daily basis. From multiple locations across the world. While the remote trend shows a huge productivity increase amongst workers, some executives are left with a few unanswered questions about how to handle security. SafeGuard Cyber, the leading provider in end-to-end digital risk protection, has some tips for addressing the remote security issue. Really understand your risks: Before you can address your security risks, you must understand what they are. Think about all of the tools your organization uses in its daily operations, tools that make business processes more efficient. CRM has moved to Salesforce, Marketing spends their time on social media, and Sales are using social media and collaboration apps, like Slack, to communicate faster. Your employees are on the frontline of data protection: Educate everyone on your staff about security protection. Security teams need to work closely with stakeholders to ensure all cloud environments are secure, and avoid the shadow IT trap. It’s a matter of empowering your employees to use these apps securely so they can do their best business, not saying ‘no’ to ignore the problem. Instead, teams should work together to understand what tools are needed to conduct business, and why they need them. By developing a close relationship you avoid being asked for approval at the last minute, or worse, finding out the team adopted an app without asking. It’s the little things: Your employees use the chat function on Teams and Slack for quick collaboration. For example, an employee might send a team member a link to the proposal they are working on in Slack. Then follow up with a link to a GIF about how tired and hungry they are. As a company, your focus might be on policies that ensure the proposal is in line with compliance regulations and is not shared externally. Jim Zuffoletti, CEO of SafeGuard Cyber, talks about all this and the future of cybersecurity in a remote world.