When your team spreads across airports, hotels, and shared co-working spaces for summer holidays, your remote access security faces a different kind of stress test. It's not about whether your VPN works — it's about what happens when an employee connects to hotel Wi-Fi in Brighton or checks email from a terminal at Gatwick.

The risks during this period are real and specific. They don't require a cybersecurity degree to understand, but most SMEs haven't thought them through before the August rush arrives.

Why Summer Holidays Create Different Security Risks

Office security assumes a controlled environment: corporate devices, managed networks, IT staff nearby. Holiday remote access strips all of that away.

During the summer period, several things change at once:

• Staff use personal devices alongside company laptops, often with different security configurations

• Network connections shift from trusted office infrastructure to public hotspots, hotel routers, and airport terminals

• IT teams are thinner on the ground, meaning incidents may take longer to spot or respond to

• Employees may be less alert to security prompts when they're in holiday mode

This isn't about blaming staff for going on holiday. It's about recognising that the security posture of an SME with half its team away is structurally different from the same business at full strength.

The Specific Risks Your Team Faces Away From the Office

Public Wi-Fi connections

Hotel, café, and airport Wi-Fi is the most visible summer risk. These networks are shared with dozens or hundreds of other users. A skilled attacker on the same network can potentially intercept unencrypted traffic between a device and your cloud services.

Even with a VPN in place, public Wi-Fi introduces other concerns: rogue access points set up to look like legitimate hotel networks, and the temptation for staff to skip security prompts because they're trying to get work done between meetings.

Personal devices and shadow IT

Summer holidays often mean staff use personal phones, tablets, or shared family laptops to check emails, access shared drives, or join client calls. These devices may lack the same security controls as company-issued hardware — no device encryption, outdated operating systems, or personal apps that conflict with work tools.

This shadow IT behaviour tends to spike during holiday periods when convenience overrides procedure.

Reduced monitoring and response capacity

With key IT staff on leave, your organisation's ability to detect and respond to security incidents drops. Log monitoring may be automated, but genuine investigation — the kind that distinguishes a phishing attempt from routine noise — requires someone awake and available.

This doesn't mean you need to keep your IT team working through August. It means planning for the reality that incident response times may be longer than usual.

Data exposure in shared accommodation

Hotel minibars, conference rooms, and rental properties create physical security risks that office environments don't. Laptops left unattended in hotel lobbies, sticky notes with credentials near desk areas, or devices connected to shared printers are all more common during holiday working than most SMEs realise.

Practical Steps for Summer Holiday Remote Access

You don't need a complete security overhaul to handle this period. A few focused actions make a meaningful difference.

Set clear holiday access expectations

Before the summer rush, communicate what staff should and shouldn't do when working remotely during holidays. This isn't about restricting flexibility — it's about reducing risk through clarity.

Key points to cover:

• Avoid conducting sensitive client work over public Wi-Fi where possible

• Never connect personal devices to company systems without prior approval

• Keep laptops physically secured when not in active use

• Report any suspicious network behaviour, even during holiday periods

Review your VPN and MFA settings

Your remote access infrastructure should be checked before the peak holiday period, not after an incident. Two things deserve attention:

Ensure multi-factor authentication is enforced across all remote access points. If any team member can log in with a password alone, that's an opening during periods when staff are less likely to notice unusual login alerts.

Verify that your VPN configuration handles unexpected usage patterns. Some VPN solutions struggle with high volumes of short-duration connections — the kind that happen when staff briefly check systems from different locations throughout a trip.

Plan for reduced IT coverage

Map out who will handle security incidents when key staff are away. This isn't about finding someone to work overtime — it's about ensuring coverage through a combination of on-call arrangements, external support contacts, and automated monitoring that alerts the right person.

Document basic response procedures so whoever picks up a ticket knows what to do. Simple checklists prevent small incidents from becoming large ones during thin-coverage periods.

Consider a pre-summer security check

If your organisation hasn't reviewed its remote access setup recently, a brief security review before the holiday period can surface gaps that summer conditions will amplify. This is about prevention, not panic — a structured look at your current controls against the specific risks this time of year brings.

What If Something Goes Wrong?

The best preparation is knowing what to do when things don't go as planned. Keep a simple incident response contact list accessible to all staff, not just the IT team. This should include:

• Your primary IT support contact for holiday periods

• Your external security support provider, if applicable

• A clear process for reporting suspected breaches, even minor ones

The faster an issue is reported, the easier it is to contain. Staff who aren't sure whether something is a problem should report it rather than assume it's nothing.

Preparing Your Organisation for Safe Holiday Working

Summer holiday remote access doesn't have to be a security headache. The approach is straightforward: acknowledge the different risks this period creates, set clear expectations with your team, and ensure your security controls are actually ready for the way people work when they're away from the office.

The organisations that handle this well don't overcomplicate it. They plan ahead, communicate clearly, and maintain the same standards of security regardless of where their staff are sitting.

If you'd like a structured view of your current remote access posture and how it holds up during periods like the summer holidays, a Security Triage Call gives you a clear baseline and practical next steps.

For more on how structured IT management reduces risk across your organisation, see our guide to why standardisation matters in IT.

For SMEs looking to strengthen their overall cyber security posture, Cyber Essentials provides a solid foundation.

FAQ

Does working from a hotel make my company data less secure?

It depends on how you access it. Connecting to unsecured hotel Wi-Fi without a VPN increases exposure. Using your company laptop over a secure VPN connection from a hotel is far less risky. The key is ensuring encrypted connections and avoiding public networks for sensitive work.

Should staff avoid checking work email during holidays?

Not necessarily. The issue isn't checking email — it's how and where it's done. Encourage staff to use company devices over secure connections rather than personal devices on public networks. If they need to check something quickly, a VPN connection from their phone is safer than logging in from a hotel laptop on public Wi-Fi.

How does reduced IT staffing affect our security?

It extends response times for genuine incidents that require human investigation. Automated monitoring and alerts should still function, but anything requiring judgement — distinguishing a real threat from noise — needs someone available. Plan ahead by setting up on-call arrangements or external support contacts for the holiday period.

What's the single most important thing to do before staff go on holiday?

Ensure multi-factor authentication is enforced everywhere remote access is used. It's the single most effective control against unauthorised access, and it works regardless of where your staff connect from.

This article was written for SME decision-makers in the UK who manage IT operations during periods when teams work remotely from non-office locations.