Staying Safe While Remotely Working

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Staying Safe While Remotely Working

          With more companies opting to work from home more than ever, there are many things that a company needs to consider from a cyber security standpoint. While working from home, employees will not be under the same protections that they may have had while working from the main office. Hackers will without a doubt try to target people who are working from home. This is an obvious risk as home workers could run into various malware or viruses without knowing. Therefore, it is important to understand and follow what your company’s written cyber security policies are. Here we will try to give some helpful tips on what can be done to protect yourself and your company’s information while working from home.

Make Sure Employees Know to Update Their Software

            One of the first major things to request of your employees is to make sure that they are keeping their computers up to date. Updates and patches are critical to ensuring that your computer’s software is current to combat the latest digital threats. Along with the computer’s operating system, this includes anything from Anti-Viruses, Microsoft Teams, and your company’s primary business software. These patches provide the latest in both security and features.

Know and Follow Company’s Written Policies

Because there is such a wide range of programs available, you may be tempted to use an unauthorized application while working remotely. Be sure that you follow your company’s written policies on what applications you should be using while working from home. This policy can outline what has been deemed safe to use as well as other important information such as what you should use to back up your information if it is not already being backed up automatically. If you are not aware of your company’s policies, it is important to consult management to learn what policies they have in place.

Strong Authentication

            Making sure that your employees have strong passwords or passphrases is only the first of many steps to keep information secure while working from home. Adding a proven method such as two-factor authentication, can help keep employee accounts even more secure. By doing so, employees confirm their identity through the use of their email, phone or other personal devices. This step can exponentially increase the security of all the accounts.

Backup Info

            Review your company’s written security policy and consult with your management to ensure that your information is being backed up. If your company is not automatically backing up the information you are working on, it is important that you save your work using an external hard drive or USB thumb drive. Consistently backing up your information can make sure that you do not lose critical data in the event you find yourself in a malware attack.

Respond to Crisis

            Ensure that you are aware of your company’s crisis management policy to know what steps you should take during a security incident. If this happens, immediately notify management of the situation and power down your computer unless otherwise stated in policy. Do not attempt a remedy yourself, as this could make the situation worse.

Educate Yourself

            Knowing what to do and when to do it can be the difference between a successful cyber-attack and keeping company information safe. It is important that you are aware that you know your company’s policies and educate yourself to keep your and the company’s information safe. Knowing what various scams and malicious attacks look like as well as the steps above is critical in keeping your information safe while working remotely. Doing this can mitigate the spread of a virus and the reach of something like a malware attack. For more information, go to https://www.XLNsystems.com/.

Source:
https://go.novastor.com/hubfs/USA/Deliverables/EB-Remote_Worker_Protection.pdf


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