Tips on How to Maintain High Security Standards While Working From Home
As the number of employees working from home continues to rise due to the COVID-19 crisis, companies are finding themselves in unchartered waters as they make the move to a remote workforce. The number of team members working from home has increased to over 90% of the company, a sharp increase from the former average of 15%. While organizations scramble to adjust to the “new normal”, they risk becoming targets for hackers and scams. Fortunately, there are a few simple actions that companies can recommend to their employees to improve security and mitigate risk around the work from home strategy.
- Make sure that WI-FI passwords are complex and utilizing WPA2 encryption at a minimum
- Ensure that the usernames and passwords on home routers have been changed from the default (admin – admin or admin-password login combinations)
- Do not use wireless SSIDs that can be associated with, or are easily identifiable to the employee, the employee’s family or the employee’s home address
- The router’s remote management setting should be disabled
- Ensure router firmware is up to date
- Location doesn’t matter, treat the home office as if it is the corporate office:
- Only use work computers for work related activities
- Stay away from questionable websites and suspicious hyperlinks
- Don’t allow family members to use work computers for non-work-related activities such as:
- School work
- Gaming
- Home business
- Social media
Though this “new normal” may be temporary, companies should employ an “always on” end-user protection strategy that ensures all devices are secure, regardless of the network. GuideIT Managed Security Services provides managed anti-virus and patch management protection that not only secures devices in the office but wherever the office needs to be at a point in time on any given day. You can find more information about GuideIT’s secure device enablement here: https://www.guideit.com/solutions/cyber-security/end-user-protection/
