Prior to the pandemic, “digital transformation” was a common buzzword, and experts urged businesses to plan for it and take the leap or risk falling behind the competition. In hindsight, the pandemic forced many companies to modernize rapidly. According to a 2022 Deloitte trends report, just over half of organizations had restructured since the beginning of the pandemic, with nearly two-thirds (63%) focusing on digital transformation.

Part of this transformation involved the support of a remote or hybrid workforce, which includes a remote access strategy built around secure remote access software and policies that protect sensitive data from unauthorized access.

But part of the challenge was that much of the work to ensure users could remotely access organizational resources was likely done ad hoc, piecing together solutions as the business shifted to the cloud, made acquisitions, opened new offices, and responded to the specific operational needs of remote employees.

The Hidden Risk of Fragmented Remote Access

The result was a disparate set of remote access methods and solutions, creating remote access vulnerabilities across the organization. This includes a convoluted mix of corporate and personal devices, virtual private networks (VPNs), remote desktop software, desktop virtualization, and internally and externally based remote sessions. Add to this the fact that organizations may have subsidiaries, each with its own tech stack, policies, business requirements, and cybersecurity needs.

In the end, your organization as a whole is prone to remote access risk from a number of directions, at varying levels, while lacking visibility into every remote access interaction and complete control over the use of remote access. That risk can only truly be addressed by unifying your organization’s remote access strategy and execution, standardizing on a single remote access solution to address three key organizational risks.

1. Increased Cybersecurity Risk

Because many remote access implementations were stopgap measures to ensure business continuity, you may have inherited the current-day iteration of that setup and are working now towards ensuring that it not only meets the business’ productivity needs but also its cybersecurity requirements.

Your organization’s remote access method may be increasing its cyber risk by exposing remote access vulnerabilities that allow unauthorized users to gain control of internal systems. If you’re simply using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) or other remote desktop services exposed to the Internet without additional security controls like multi-factor authentication (MFA), you’re definitely leaving multiple entry points open for attackers to exploit through brute-force attacks or phishing attempts.

Common Remote Access Vulnerabilities to Watch For

Many organizations still rely on unpatched systems or outdated remote access tools, creating gaps that cybercriminals use to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information. While your remote access is used to aid both external and internal users to legitimately access internal endpoints and systems, phishing remains the most common initial attack vector, responsible for 16% of breaches in 2025, including various social engineering attacks. and a leading trigger for ransomware incidents, according to the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025.

In addition, having a remote workforce isn’t helping your cybersecurity risk either. Nearly half (49%) of CISOs now identify remote or hybrid workers as their biggest security vulnerability, underscoring the elevated threat level when access is distributed. When remote work is a factor in a data breach, the average incident cost rises by about $131,000 compared to organizations without a remote workforce.

Where Remote Access Security Breaks Down

Part of the equation is likely the use of a personal device (read: a device with less cyber protection than the organization mandates for corporate devices) connecting to the corporate network or its resources on the web via a VPN, or even worse, directly connecting to a remote connection.

The other part of the equation is the wide range of solutions and tools used to meet the varying remote access needs, each with its own set of security features that may or may not be in use, as well as the absence of a single configuration that ensures the correct level of implemented security to protect the organization from attack and/or misuse.

Strengthening Security Through Best Practices

To strengthen the security posture within their organizations, IT teams should follow security best practices, such as multi-factor authentication and role-based access controls, and adopt a Zero Trust security model that verifies every user, device, and session.

Reducing the Risk with Unified Remote Access

A single remote access solution addresses so many cybersecurity risks, providing it has the right features to address the various requirements for each location, business unit, subsidiary, etc. within the organization.

When designed with proper encryption, intrusion detection systems, and ongoing security monitoring, a unified remote access platform can help mitigate remote access vulnerabilities and protect sensitive data across the organization.
Some of these features would include:

• Centralized configuration to establish secure remote access organization-wide that is sanctioned by the corporate security team and aligned with security best practices and security protocols
• Flexible role-based access controls (RBAC) to define permissions and limit access based on job function and risk level
• Support for multi-factor authentication and antivirus protection to stop threat actors with compromised credentials or infected mobile devices
• Direct- and cloud-proxied connections (for internal and external sessions) to minimize man-in-the-middle attacks and maintain data integrity across cloud infrastructure and remote servers
• Usage logging, session recording, and regular security audits to maintain visibility into every remote access session, detect security incidents, and verify compliance with corporate remote access security policies

Regular updates, patch management, and applying the latest security patches further reduce remote access vulnerabilities caused by outdated or unpatched software.

2. Lowered Productivity

The use of remote access solutions can also impact employee productivity. Some research shows that while many remote workers report equivalent or higher output, a notable portion of supervisors remain concerned about productivity when access is distributed and solutions are inconsistent.

Whether employees use locally installed applications, SaaS tools, or remote access systems, their working environment still needs to be both functional and responsive. Whether it’s locally installed applications, SaaS applications in the cloud, or remotely accessible internal applications and data, employees need a working environment that is functional as much as it is responsive.

How VPN Performance Impacts Productivity

With many organizations having their remote users connect via a VPN followed by a remote desktop session, performance is often slower because the VPN adds encryption overhead and routing delays. According to Fortinet, VPN use can reduce internet speed due to encryption, server distance, and congestion, which together can make remote desktop sessions less responsive.

That’s not to say we’re for eliminating a VPN and having a direct RDP connection – while better for performance, it’s not recommended from a cybersecurity perspective. The result, of course, is lowered productivity and a frustrated employee. At the end of the day, the employee needs a simple way to remotely access organizational resources in a way that looks and feels like it’s local to their endpoint.

The IT Side of Productivity Loss

But there’s another productivity issue at hand: IT productivity. With so many solutions potentially in play, it’s an implementation/configuration/support nightmare. No support desk wants to be responsible for supporting anything more than one solution, of any kind, let alone remote access.

Reducing the Risk with Unified Remote Access

The right remote access solution will ensure employees are productive, regardless of where they are. Take the example of two users needing to remotely access an internal system – one works in the office and the other is remote. The right remote access solution has the ability to provide the remote worker with web-based access to the internal system’s desktop over an optimized connection, while simultaneously enabling the internal user to directly connect to the same system without the need for traversing the web. In both scenarios, the user’s productivity is addressed.

But the remote access solution employed needs to make IT happy from a configuration, delegation, and security standpoint. Utilizing a unified remote access solution empowers IT to provide users with exactly the remote access experience needed while simplifying the deployment, ongoing management, and support of the solution.

3. Increased Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

It’s evident that if the organization has a disparate set of remote access solutions and methods in place, there are both tangible and intangible costs that can add up, including:

• Licensing
• User Training
• IT Training
• Deployment
• Support
• Maintenance
• Potential Cyberattack Costs (had to add this in for good measure)

With all these cost factors, it just makes sense that if you have multiple solutions in place, there will be a higher total cost of ownership.

Reducing the Risk with Unified Remote Access

The single solution approach reduces the TCO of providing remote access overall; from leveraging enterprise licensing over one-off purchases, to installing a single solution designed to be mass-deployed organization-wide, to only having to support a single solution, to know the entire organization’s remote access is secure from cyberattack, to keeping a single solution updated, it’s clear that a unified remote access solution would lower your TCO and help mitigate remote access vulnerabilities.

Eliminating the Risk

Can a unified remote access solution truly “eliminate” the risks mentioned in this article? It’s fair to say that the right solution will minimize those risks enough to be as close to “eliminate” as a solution can get. Goals like remaining secure, staying productive, and keeping costs low are organizational goals that are addressed with best effort. A unified remote access solution represents a far better potential for addressing organizational risk than a disparate set of no-longer-managed and unaudited remote access solutions currently in play.

By utilizing a unified remote access solution, your organization will be in a better position to establish and meet organizational cybersecurity requirements, elevate the productivity of users regardless of their needed remote access scenario, and lower the cost of providing remote access to a workforce that doesn’t appear to be coming back to the office anytime soon.

Why RealVNC Connect is the trusted choice for secure, unified remote access

If your organization is ready to reduce risk, streamline access, and improve productivity across distributed teams, RealVNC Connect offers a proven way forward. Designed for simplicity and built with enterprise-grade security, RealVNC Connect helps you unify your remote access strategy without adding complexity or compromising control.

With RealVNC Connect, you can:

• Secure every session with end-to-end encryption, granular permissions, and multi-factor authentication.
• Simplify management through centralized deployment, monitoring, and configuration that scale across your workforce.
• Support every user and device, whether they’re on-site, hybrid, or fully remote, across all major operating systems.
• Enhance visibility and compliance with detailed session logging and audit capabilities.
• Reduce total cost of ownership by consolidating multiple remote access tools into one unified, reliable platform.

RealVNC Connect powers remote access for some of the world’s most trusted brands, delivering performance, reliability, and peace of mind to both IT teams and end users.

Start your free 14-day trial today to see how RealVNC Connect can help your organization stay secure, productive, and connected from anywhere.