Work-From-Home Cybersecurity

Work-From-Home Cybersecurity — Do You Know How To Stay Secure?

There’s a lot to consider when it comes to securing your work from home environment — discover everything you need to know in this clip from Mountain Connections, featuring our very own Earl Foote.

You’ve likely been working from home for well over a year at this point, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still improve your approach to remote cybersecurity.

In this recent video from Park City Television’s Mountain Connections, Nexus’ Earl Foote discussed best practices for work-from-home cybersecurity:

3 Key Cybersecurity Risks In The Work-From-Home Environment

• Shared Wi-Fi: If you live and work in high-density buildings, such as high rises and apartment complexes, it’s like that you’re sharing a wi-fi network with strangers. This can drastically expose your data to dangerous third parties.
• Social Media: Given the role that remote work has taken on in the public’s attention, it’s become more and more common for people to share photos of their work-from-home set up on social media. It’s important to note that doing so can give cybercriminals a lot of useful information, such as password and security question hints, information visible on the desk, etc.
• Unsecured Devices: Some remote workers may be using personal or shared family devices for their professional work. If another user in the family visits the wrong site or accesses the wrong inbox, they can quickly put locally-stored business data at risk.

5 Ways To Enhance Work-From-Home Cybersecurity

1. Use A VPN: When you use a virtual private network (VPN), your data is encrypted, or hidden, as it moves from your device to the VPN and then continues onto the Internet. That makes it harder for an attacker to identify you as the source of the data.
2. Implement Multi-Factor Authentication: Multi-factor authentication is a great way to add an extra layer of protection to the existing system and account logins. By requiring a second piece of information like a randomly-generated numerical code sent by text message, you’re able to make sure that the person using the login credentials is actually who they say they are.
3. Manage Your Passwords: One of the best ways to maintain complex passwords is with a password manager. Password managers are key to keeping your passwords secure.   A password manager generates, keeps track of, and retrieves complex and long passwords for you to protect your vital online information. It also remembers your PINS, credit card numbers, and three-digit CVV codes if you choose this option.
4. Verify Payments Via Phone: As you can’t meet in person to verify major financial transactions, the least you can do is confirm over the phone with the contact. Never execute a financial transfer based on an email request alone – it could very well be a cybercriminal posing as a business contact or third-party organization.
5. Stay Up To Date: One of the most common ways that cybercriminals get into a network is through loopholes in popular software? Much of the software you rely on to get work done every day could have flaws — or “exploits” — that leave you vulnerable to security breaches. That’s why developers regularly release software patches and updates to fix those flaws and protect users, which need to be installed when they are issued.

The bottom line is that no matter how you’ve managed remote work so far, you need to make sure it’s optimized and secure. This means reassessing your risks so that you can mitigate threats and further improve your security.

When in doubt, reach out to cyber professionals like the team from Nexus IT Consultants for expert advice about your remote cybersecurity.