Five Considerations When Sharing Corporate IT Resources With Third-Party Users

Experts at Leostream offer advice on granting access to outside contractors, vendors, or other non-employees

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Most organizations today grant third-party users access to corporate IT infrastructure for maintenance tasks, collaboration, or to perform outsourced assignments. Working with outside contractors, vendors, freelancers, and external stakeholders presents multiple challenges for securing data, applications, and infrastructure, and for ensuring productivity and a consistent experience.

Experts at Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream® Remote Desktop Access Platform, say the risks and vulnerabilities introduced by third-party user access can be mitigated by intelligent, common-sense management.

The company’s five most important considerations for third-party access are that it should be identity-based, secure, device-agnostic, VPN-free, and verified.

Identity-based
Access to resources should be managed based on the third-party user’s identity and function so they are granted as much or as little access as is required by their role. Use tools to limit their access by date and time, and automatically revoke their access when no longer required.

Secure
Use a zero-trust approach that employs strict authentication and authorization policies. Third parties can use a dedicated username and password for the access management system, but don’t need to know the username and password for the corporate machine they are logging into.

Device-agnostic
External users will need to connect from nearly any hardware, device, and OS, including Windows, Linux, macOS, ChromeOS, Android, and iOS. No agent software should need to be installed on corporate resources or the third-party user’s devices.

VPN-free
Don’t give external parties access through a virtual private network. VPNs are frustrating for end users, constrain performance, and introduce openings to the network where cyber attacks can enter. Use a streamlined gateway that programmatically opens and closes access to the specific organizational resources that users are empowered to see and use.

Verified
Administrators should maintain comprehensive logs of remote access, including session recording. Look for high-level reporting that tracks third-party login and resource usage, monitors for anomalous activity, and ensures policies are enforced.

“It’s almost unavoidable that an enterprise has to provide some measure of access to non-employees, such as when IT services are performed by an outside provider, but that access cannot introduce security flaws or put corporate resources and data at risk,” said Karen Gondoly, Leostream CEO. “These guidelines will help develop the right policies and practices for granting third parties access to what they need to fulfill their tasks, while mitigating the threats that this can introduce.”

Leostream offers a Privileged Remote Access service that controls and secures third-party access to sensitive corporate resources. The standalone Software-as-a-Service solution simplifies the on-boarding of vendors and external contractors, while the Leostream Gateway provides just-in-time remote access. The Leostream service helps organizations manage and audit vendor access with strict authentication, least-privileged access control, and session recording for complete vendor accountability.

About Leostream

Leostream solutions embody over 20 years of Leostream research and development in supporting customers with hosted desktop environments, including VDI, hybrid cloud, and high-performance display protocols. The Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform provides the world’s most robust desktop connection management and remote access feature set, allowing today’s enterprises to choose the best-of-breed components to satisfy their complex security, cost, and flexibility needs while working with them as they evolve into tomorrow. The Leostream Privileged Remote Access service simplifies, secures, and monitors temporary access to corporate resources for vendors, service providers, and external contractors, Follow Leostream on LinkedIn and X.

Leostream is a registered trademark of Leostream Corporation in the United States. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.