Secure network connection at a remote site: solutions and best practices

Your business is growing. That's fantastic! But with that growth comes complexity, especially when you start opening new branch offices or managing teams in different locations. Suddenly, you’re not just protecting one office; you're trying to defend dozens.

Ensuring a secure network connection at a remote site is a fundamental business requirement. One weak link in a remote location can compromise your entire corporate network.

Figuring this all out can feel overwhelming. You've got acronyms like VPN, ZTNA, and MPLS flying around, and all you want is a straightforward way to keep your data safe and your business running.

This guide will cut through the noise. We'll break down the challenges, explore the best practices, and introduce modern solutions that make securing your remote sites simpler and more effective than ever before.

Key takeaways

• Security is non-negotiable: An unsecured remote site is a wide-open door for cyber-attacks, leading to data breaches, operational downtime, and reputational damage.
• Traditional methods have limits: Old-school solutions like Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) are expensive and rigid. Basic internet connections with a simple VPN solution can also leave security gaps.
• Zero Trust is the new standard: The modern approach, Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), operates on a "never trust, always verify" principle. It grants access to specific applications, not the entire network, which reduces security risks.
• Best practices are your foundation: Implementing firewalls, multi-factor authentication (MFA), network segmentation, and clear security policies are essential.
• Modern solutions simplify security: Frameworks like Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and dedicated Site-to-Site secure access tools combine networking and security into a single, manageable platform. They make it easier to provide secure access for your entire organization.

Why a secure network connection at a remote site is important

Imagine your branch office is a digital extension of your headquarters. It accesses the same sensitive data, from customer information and financial records to intellectual property.

The stakes are high:

• Data breaches: A single breach at a remote site can expose your entire company's data. The average cost of a data breach is $4.4M (IBM, 2025), not to mention the irreparable damage to customer trust.
• Business disruption: An attack that takes a remote site offline can halt sales, disrupt supply chains, and bring productivity to a grinding halt. If your retail store can't process payments or your warehouse can't access shipping manifests, your business stops.
• Compliance violations: Industries like healthcare and finance have strict regulations about data protection. Healthcare is governed by the U.S. HIPAA law, and organizations handling payment card data must meet the PCI DSS industry standard. Failure to secure data across all remote locations can lead to fines and legal trouble.
• Reputational damage: News of a security failure spreads fast. Losing the trust of your customers and partners is often the most significant long-term cost of a breach.

In short, securing your remote sites is not an extra; it's part of your business's survival strategy.

How remote site connectivity works

To understand how to secure these connections, we first need to understand how they’re built.

Traditional WANs and MPLS

For a long time, the gold standard for connecting multiple offices was a Wide Area Network (WAN), often built using Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). MPLS uses a provider-managed backbone that isolates your traffic from the public internet, but it isn’t a dedicated private circuit and doesn’t encrypt by default.

• Pros: Highly reliable. Offers predictable performance and traffic isolation. For confidentiality, pair MPLS with encryption.
• Cons: Very expensive, takes a long time to set up, and is incredibly rigid. Need to add a new site or increase bandwidth? Get ready for a lengthy and costly process.

Internet-based connections (broadband, LTE)

Today, most businesses use standard business internet connections (broadband, fiber, or even 4G/5G LTE) to connect their remote sites. It's the “public road system” for data.

• Pros: Far cheaper, widely available, and much more flexible than MPLS. You can get a new site online in days, not months.
• Cons: It's the public internet. Without additional security layers, it’s like sending your sensitive company memos on postcards for anyone to read. The performance can also be less predictable than a dedicated MPLS line.

The role of VPNs

This is where the virtual private network (VPN) proves its value. A VPN creates a private, encrypted connection over the public internet. It essentially builds a secure tunnel for your data to travel through, shielding it from anyone who might be snooping around. This has long been the go-to method for creating a secure connection for remote work and site-to-site links.

Main challenges of securing remote sites

Connecting remote sites is one thing; securing them is another. As your business expands, you'll run into several common, and frankly, frustrating challenges:

1. Increased attack surface: Every new site, every new device, and every new user is another potential entry point for an attacker.
2. Inconsistent security: Your headquarters might have a state-of-the-art firewall and strict security protocols, but that new branch office might be running on a consumer-grade router with the default password. This inconsistency creates a critical weak link.
3. Lack of visibility and control: It’s hard for a central IT team to see what’s happening on the network at a site hundreds of miles away. Are there unauthorized devices connected? Is an employee accidentally downloading malware? Without visibility, you can't have control.
4. Scalability headaches: Managing security for five sites is complicated. Managing it for fifty can be a nightmare. Manually configuring VPNs, firewalls, and access rules for each new location simply doesn't scale.
5. The user experience vs. security trade-off: Overly complex security measures can frustrate employees and slow down business. Users will often find ways to bypass security if it gets in their way, creating even bigger security risks.

7 best practices for secure remote connectivity

Feeling a little overwhelmed? Don't be. You can improve your network security with a set of proven best practices. Here are seven fundamental steps to lock down your remote connectivity.

1. Implement a strong firewall

A firewall sits at the entry point of your remote site's network and inspects all incoming and outgoing traffic. It blocks malicious traffic based on a set of predefined security policies. A modern, next-generation firewall (NGFW) can even identify specific applications and threats, which gives you much more granular control.

2. Enforce strong authentication and access control

A password is no longer enough. You must implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible.

MFA requires users to provide two or more verification factors to gain access, such as a password and a code from their smartphone. This means that even if a cybercriminal steals a password, they can't get in.

Just as important is the principle of least privilege (PoLP): users should only be given access to the specific data and applications they absolutely need to do their jobs, and nothing more.

3. Use a virtual private network (VPN)

A VPN is a foundational tool for secure remote access. It creates that essential secure tunnel between your remote site and the corporate network. There are two main types:

• Remote access VPN: Connects an individual user (like an employee working from home) to the network.
• Site-to-Site VPN: Connects an entire network in one location (the branch office) to an entire network in another (headquarters).

4. Adopt a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) model

This is the modern evolution of network security. The old model was "trust but verify": once on the traditional VPN, you could access large parts of the network. The Zero Trust model is "never trust, always verify."

With ZTNA, access is not granted based on being on the "trusted" network. Instead, every single request to access an application is verified. A user's identity, device health, and location are all checked before they are granted a secure connection to only that specific resource.

This dramatically shrinks the attack surface. If a breach does occur, it's contained to that one application, not the entire network.

5. Keep all software and systems updated

This sounds simple, but it's one of the most critical and often overlooked security tasks. Software developers are constantly releasing patches to fix security vulnerabilities. Failing to apply these updates is like knowing about a broken lock on your door and doing nothing about it. Automate patching and updates whenever possible across all your remote locations.

6. Segment your network

Don't put all your digital eggs in one basket. Network segmentation involves dividing your corporate network into smaller, isolated sub-networks. For example, you can put your guest Wi-Fi on a separate segment from your sensitive financial data. If one segment is compromised, the isolation prevents the attacker from moving laterally across your network to access more critical assets.

7. Establish and enforce clear security policies

Technology alone is not enough. You need clear, written security policies that every employee understands and follows.

These policies should cover everything from password complexity and acceptable use of company devices to procedures for reporting a suspected security incident. Regular training ensures that your team remains your strongest defense, not your weakest link.

Modern solutions to secure remote sites

While the best practices above are essential, modern technology offers more integrated and efficient ways to implement them. The industry is moving away from bolting together a dozen different security products and toward unified platforms.

• SASE (Secure Access Service Edge): Pronounced "sassy," this architectural game-changer combines network capabilities (like SD-WAN) and a full suite of security services (SWG, CASB, FWaaS, ZTNA) in a cloud-delivered model.
  Instead of routing all traffic from your branch office back to a central HQ for security checks (which is slow and inefficient), SASE applies security at the cloud edge, closer to the user. This means better performance and consistent security for all users, no matter where they are.
• ZTNA (Zero Trust Network Access): As mentioned, ZTNA is a core component of modern security. ZTNA limits access to specific apps and often replaces or augments remote-access VPN solutions. This is the key to achieving a "least privilege" access model and is fundamental to securing a modern, distributed workforce.
• SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network): SD-WAN is a smarter way to manage your network connections. It allows you to use multiple types of connections (MPLS, broadband, LTE) at once and intelligently routes traffic based on application priority and real-time network conditions.
  For example, it can send critical video conferencing traffic over your most reliable link while sending less important background updates over a cheaper broadband connection. When combined with SASE, it provides both optimized performance and reliable security.

Practical applications of secure remote site access

This isn't just theoretical. Businesses across every industry are using these solutions to solve real-world problems.

Retail chains

A retail chain needs to connect thousands of point-of-sale (POS) systems, inventory management terminals, and employee devices across hundreds of stores back to the corporate network. A secure remote access solution ensures that customer credit card data is protected (for PCI DSS compliance) and that daily sales data syncs reliably with headquarters.

Healthcare clinics

A hospital system with numerous outpatient clinics and labs in different locations handles an immense amount of sensitive patient data (ePHI). A secure connection that complies with HIPAA is non-negotiable. ZTNA is particularly effective here: it ensures that a doctor at a clinic can only access the patient records they are authorized to see, and nothing more.

Manufacturing plants

Manufacturing companies have valuable intellectual property (product designs, proprietary processes) and increasingly connected operational technology on their factory floors. Securing the connection to these plants prevents industrial espionage and protects against attacks that could halt production lines and cause millions in losses.

Financial services

Banks and investment firms with regional branches require an incredibly high level of security for transactions and customer data. A site-to-site VPN or a SASE architecture can provide secure access between branches and data centers.

How NordLayer can help

Navigating the world of network security can be complex, but the right partner can make all the difference. NordLayer offers a secure remote access solution designed to address the challenges of the modern, distributed business.

NordLayer provides a single, unified platform that integrates key security technologies. It’s easy to provide secure access for your entire workforce, whether they are at home, in a branch office, or on the go.

Here's how NordLayer aligns with the best practices we've discussed:

• Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA): NordLayer is built on a foundation of Zero Trust. It often augments or replaces traditional remote-access VPNs with identity-based, application-level access, enforcing the principle of least privilege and significantly reducing your attack surface.
• Site-to-Site secure remote access: NordLayer's Site-to-Site functionality extends far beyond just connecting physical offices. It allows you to create a secure, encrypted connection between all your key business locations, whether they are hardware-based or in the cloud.
  You can link your headquarters to the smallest satellite branch and, just as easily, establish a secure tunnel to your vital resources hosted in platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. The result is a single, unified, and secure corporate network that encompasses all your assets, without the high cost and rigidity of legacy solutions like MPLS.
• Centralized management and visibility: Forget logging into dozens of different devices. NordLayer provides a single, intuitive Control Panel where you can manage users, set security policies, and monitor connections, devices, and security posture across locations and Virtual Private Gateways (VPGs). This centralized management saves time and reduces the chance of human error.
• Strong encryption and security features: With advanced VPN protocols like NordLynx (based on WireGuard®) and strong encryption ciphers (AES-256 and ChaCha20), plus features like Web Protection and Device Posture Security rules, NordLayer ensures every connection is protected in transit.

Instead of wrestling with multiple vendors and complex hardware, NordLayer offers an easy cloud-based solution that scales with your business.

Secure network connection FAQs

What’s the difference between a site-to-site VPN and a remote access VPN?

With modern security solutions, the lines between these two concepts have started to blur, but they still solve different problems.

A site-to-site VPN creates a secure entry point into a private network. It connects a remote network (like your branch office or a cloud-based server environment) to your private corporate network, such as the one managed by NordLayer.

Once that office network is securely linked, individual employees (remote work users) who are part of the secure network can then access the resources located at that site. In this sense, individuals use the site-to-site connectivity to reach the company's remote physical or cloud-based networks.

So while a remote access VPN traditionally described the individual's connection and site-to-site described the network's connection, they now work together. An individual uses their secure connection to access the central platform, which then routes them to the resources available via the site-to-site link.

Is VPN still the best solution for remote site security?

A virtual private network is still a crucial tool, especially for creating an encrypted connection. However, a traditional VPN solution is no longer considered the best or most complete solution.

Modern security demands a more granular, identity-aware approach. That's why frameworks like ZTNA and SASE, which often use VPN principles for the connection itself, are now the gold standard, as they add critical layers of access control on top.

Which encryption protocols are most reliable?

For years, AES-256 (Advanced Encryption Standard with a 256-bit key) has been the industry standard for data encryption, and it remains incredibly strong. Modern VPN protocols like OpenVPN and IKEv2/IPsec frequently use it. Newer protocols like WireGuard® (and its derivatives like NordLynx) are also gaining widespread adoption due to their excellent combination of top-tier security and superior performance.

How does zero trust improve over traditional VPNs?

A traditional VPN works like a key to the building. Once you're inside, you can roam many of the hallways.

Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) works like a key card that only opens one specific door. It assumes no one is trustworthy by default. Instead of granting broad network access, ZTNA grants access only to specific applications after verifying the user's identity and device. This dramatically limits potential damage if an account is ever compromised.

Can cloud-based access replace MPLS and WAN setups?

For many use cases, SD-WAN/SASE over business internet can replace MPLS, though some workloads still justify MPLS. SASE and SD-WAN allow businesses to use multiple, inexpensive internet connections to create a resilient and high-performing network with security built in rather than bolted on.