Due to the outbreak of the novel COVID-19, almost every organisation around the globe have mandated temporary social distancing policies such as working from home or working remotely in order to slow down the spread of the deadly virus. This means that there will be many employees who will be working from home for the first time ever.
Most likely, there will be various intruders who are planning to take advantage of such a situation and targeting the remote workers for some malicious activities such as phishing attacks, data breach, stealing sensitive data, etc.
These employees need to understand how they can secure the networks and protect the organisation’s data from malicious acts. However, employees working remotely is not a new thing among organisations.
This article is meant for those employees who are already working remotely or started to work from home due to the Coronavirus outbreak. In this article, we list down the top 8 cybersecurity measures for remote workers.
1| Avoid Public WiFi
It is of utmost importance to avoid public WiFi while working remotely for an organisation. According to sources, public WiFi acts as an invitation to cybercriminals because it is merely impossible for cyber experts to detect the cybercriminal. Public WiFi is mostly unsecured and using it will lead you to be the victim of Man-in-the-Middle attack. Also, one must try to use a separate home internet network for work to isolate personal devices.
2| Set Strong Passwords
Almost everything in the digital era is secured by using passwords. Strong, unique and secured passwords are crucial to avoid data breaching and other malicious activities. A strong password provides security to personal information, sensitive data and other such. While setting a strong password, one must avoid using personal data, try to make the password longer, keep changing the passwords on certain interval and other such.
3| Use Corporate VPN Access
VPNs or Virtual Private Networks are the private networks, which provide a fast, secure and reliable way to share information across computer networks. VPN uses encrypted traffic across the communication line, which makes it impossible for the cybercriminals to decrypt it and thus protecting the information across the communication.
4| Use Updated Anti-Virus Software
It is important to use network security protection to stay away from malware such as viruses, worms, Trojan horses, etc. Using an updated anti-virus software will protect a user from cybercriminals who uses malware to infect devices.
5| Two-Factor Authentication
Two-Factor Authentication or 2FA adds extra security authentication to the network. It requires the user to have two out of three types of credentials -- something you know such as password, something you have such as an ATM card and something you are such as biometric before being able to access an account. There are various types of 2FA available such as software tokens for 2FA, hardware tokens for 2FA, voice-based 2FA and other such.
6| Firewalls Setup
Firewalls are basically software programs, which help in protecting devices against malicious electronic threats. It helps to filter threatening communications and keep the cybercriminals outside the network. There are mainly two types of firewalls: network firewalls and host-based firewalls. Organisations mostly use network firewalls because it consists of a comprehensive network of multiple computers, servers, and users.
7| Set Screen Lock
If you are working outside your office, such as in a coffee shop or any co-work space, it is important to hide your work from other employees sitting around you. Set your system to automatically lock as soon as you leave your computer.
8| Encrypting Mails
When working remotely, many a time, you will need to communicate with your co-workers to get your things done. This communication will include mails with sensitive data or information, which needs to be shared across your network. Encrypting emails and other messages will prevent you from malicious attackers.
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