A year back, work from home seemed like a luxury but today, it has strangely become a necessity around the globe for safety and well-being. A recent study suggests that employees tend to remain or exceed productivity during work from home on account of fewer interruptions.
With the trend of working from home reaching the top peak, many large organizations like Twitter have announced permanent work from home options for their employees. One key factor that is holding up the whole work from home facility intact is the internet supply. If you do not have a reliable and stable internet connection today, you need to switch to a better connection like Spectrum, Grande, or Optimum right now to experience the goodness of the connected world. Either you are an intern starting your career or an experienced worker, you need to make sure that your work does not take a hike because of your internet connection. We recommend you to explore Spectrum packages to avail blazing-fast internet speeds, without any data caps, at reasonable prices.
With this trend going forward, business owners and employees must understand the nature and scope of cybercrimes and threats. Typically, workplaces have designated personnel taking care of cybersecurity measures but when working from home, every man is for himself.
We have compiled a list of the top 10 tips to make remote working more secure for you.
Buy a comprehensive Anti-Virus Software
The first and probably the easiest yet effective thing to do is to buy an all-inclusive anti-virus software suite for all of your personnel. Some studies have pointed out that the estimated damage that businesses adhere to globally due to cybercrimes is almost 1.5 billion USD on yearly basis. Financial gurus tend to think that this figure is on the rise this year more than ever, as scammers can access sensitive data easily by exploiting home networks.
Cyberattacks can lead to your business becoming vulnerable to hackers and it would be open to malware, spyware, DDoS,etc and so investing in all-inclusive anti-virus software is a smart way to go about it.
Secure your important Data and Files
If your system contains sensitive and confidential information, you need to keep it safe even from your family members. Young kids or other members ofthe family might not understand the gravity of your work and therefore, might delete or expose some important data.
It is recommended to keep your device safe and advise your colleagues as well to keep the sanctity of your work together.
Make sure to create Strong and Unique Passwords
This is by far the easiest step in ensuring your cybersecurity. Make sure to create a strong and unique password for each account. It is common practice to use the same password for every account but it is not recommended in the slightest of sense.
Update your System and Programs
You need to update your programs and operating systems regularly to reduce the avoid any uninvited activity. You might also want to enable your updates to automatic so that your system remains safe and secure throughout.
Work with a sliding Webcam Cover
This year, all of us have realized that the meetings we used to attend physically for 2 hours can be summed up in 20 minutes through skype or zoom and even sometimes an email is sufficient. Teleconferences have become a huge part of our work life now and you should be knowledgeable that perceptive scammers can conveniently hack into your webcam and compromise your integral privacy.
As a precaution, it is advisable to invest in a sliding webcam cover. If you use a separate webcam, make sure to unplug it when you are not utilizing it. For times when you are video chatting, you might want to blur the background so people cannot spy on the objects in your background.
Be cautious when sharing screen
During online conferences, we do not have our presentation tools so we tend to share our screens although be cautious when doing so. Do not leave any windows open that you would not want others to view and it can be a privacy breach as well.
Use a great VPN
It is very important to ensure that you and all your colleagues are using a great VPN for maximum security of your work files. The anti-virus in your system should also cover your VPN.
Home Network Security
A simple way to ensure cyber safety when working from home is to strengthen the security of your home Wi-Fi network. Some of the simple steps you can benefit from are listed below:
- Change the name of your Wi-Fi network. It is advisable to not use your name or identity in any sort, rather take a name that is hard to guess and cryptic.
- Create a unique and strong password, ideally a mix of numbers, symbols, lower and upper case letters.
- Make sure to enable network encryption
- You can limit access to your devices through MAC addresses so that no other device can access your network.
- Ensure that you are running the updated version of your firmware.
Beware of Phishing
Phishing has significantly increased in the past few months and internet thieves are exploiting the COVID-19 outbreak a lot. Do not open any links or attachments if they seem suspicious.
Another thing to look out for is emails asking for personal information. Phishing attackers use fake websites or duplicate websites of actual organizations to trick you into sharing your sensitive data like account usernames, passwords, social security pin, or credit card numbers. Please be aware of the fact that no reasonable company asks for your personal, confidential data via email.
Secure Online Banking
It is of utmost importance that you use credited software only to handle your funds. Also, make sure that you are logged in via a Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol, it means that the website URL should start from https:// instead of just http://. Your PIN should be unique and strong. Furthermore, only use sites that you have already experience with. You can also contact your bank or financial institution on their registered contact number for secure ways to function your bank account online.
Conclusion
Nobody knows when this crisis would be averted and to maintain a sane, professional mind, it is important to create a productive working space for yourself. We hope that you would make your work from home practice secure by following these tips.
Keep safe and stay healthy!
