What are the security risks of hiring remote workers we have never met?
Mainly that the person may not be who they claim to be, or that their equipment is not under your control. Fraudulent applicants with borrowed or invented identities have been used to gain legitimate access to code, data and internal systems, and a laptop that only ever connects from abroad over a private tunnel is hard to oversee. Reduce the risk in hiring and onboarding: verify identity with a live video call and official documents, check references directly, ship a managed company laptop rather than allowing a personal one, give access step by step and only to what the role needs, and require multi-factor authentication. Identity checks are HR's job. Where the laptop runs the NetSenX agent, unusual tunnels, beaconing or large uploads show up as evidence or alerts for IT to review.
General information, not legal advice. National laws can add to the EU texts quoted here, for example deadlines, forms or reporting channels: check your own country's rules.
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