Remote Work IT Security Checklist: 20 Controls Every SMB Needs in Place

Remote and hybrid work is no longer a temporary accommodation — it is a permanent feature of how South Florida businesses operate. But many organizations that adopted remote work quickly in 2020 and 2021 never went back to properly secure the infrastructure they stood up in a hurry. The result is an expanded attack surface that attackers are actively exploiting: home networks, personal devices, unsecured cloud access, and employees working from coffee shops and airports.

The Remote Work Attack Surface

When employees work remotely, your security perimeter effectively disappears. Every home router, personal laptop, and public Wi-Fi network becomes a potential entry point into your business systems. Traditional perimeter-based security — firewalls protecting a central office — provides almost no protection in this environment.

The 20-Point Remote Work Security Checklist

Identity & Access (Controls 1–5)

• 1. MFA enforced on all remote access — no exceptions for executives or IT staff
• 2. Conditional Access policies that block logins from unmanaged devices or unexpected locations
• 3. Privileged access managed through a PAM solution — no shared admin credentials
• 4. Regular access reviews — quarterly at minimum — to remove stale accounts and excess permissions
• 5. Password manager deployed for all employees with a policy prohibiting password reuse

Endpoint Security (Controls 6–10)

• 6. All company devices enrolled in MDM (Microsoft Intune, Jamf) for policy enforcement and remote wipe capability
• 7. EDR (Endpoint Detection & Response) deployed on all endpoints — not just traditional antivirus
• 8. Disk encryption enabled on all laptops (BitLocker for Windows, FileVault for Mac)
• 9. Automated patch management — OS and application patches deployed within 14 days of release
• 10. Personal device policy — either prohibit BYOD for business data access or enforce MDM enrollment on personal devices

Network & Connectivity (Controls 11–14)

• 11. VPN or Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) for all access to internal systems — no direct RDP exposure to the internet
• 12. DNS filtering deployed on all endpoints to block malicious domains even on home networks
• 13. Split tunneling policy reviewed — ensure sensitive traffic routes through your security stack
• 14. Remote desktop and management ports (RDP 3389, SSH 22) not exposed directly to the internet

Data Protection (Controls 15–17)

• 15. DLP (Data Loss Prevention) policies configured to prevent sensitive data from being copied to personal cloud storage or USB drives
• 16. Cloud application access controlled through CASB or Conditional Access — employees cannot access company data from unmanaged apps
• 17. Clear policy on approved collaboration tools — employees should not be using personal WhatsApp or Gmail for business communications

Monitoring & Response (Controls 18–20)

• 18. SIEM or centralized logging collecting events from endpoints, cloud applications, and network infrastructure
• 19. Alerting configured for high-risk events: impossible travel logins, mass file downloads, after-hours access to sensitive systems
• 20. Documented incident response procedure that employees know how to trigger — a single phone number or email address to report a suspected incident

Prioritizing When You Can't Do Everything at Once

If your organization is not yet at 20/20 on this checklist, prioritize in this order: MFA (Control 1), EDR (Control 7), patch management (Control 9), no direct RDP exposure (Control 14), and disk encryption (Control 8). These five controls address the most commonly exploited vulnerabilities in remote work environments and can typically be implemented within 30 days.