How to work more securely from your home office

How to work more securely from your home office

Working securely from a home office.
Sending your employees to work from home can be a bit stressful, to keep your mind at ease, we created some tips and tricks to make sure risk is minimized.

Security tips & tricks for first time home workers

Provide your staff with security knowledge

Give them information how to beware of online scams, phishing emails, not to connect to use public Wi-Fi, secure home routers and not to use work devices for private matters.
There are always IT scammers out there who take advantage of a crisis, therefore, it is important your staff is prepared and careful.

Setup a VPN for your home workers

A VPN has several advantages, especially for people working from home. It will hide the IP address, encrypt data, and hide the user´s location.
If you do not have a VPN service setup, we advise you to do your research on it and see which VPN service meets your needs. Not all can be trusted, since it is for your company’s sake, please avoid the free VPN services.
Also, once the VPN is setup, remind your employees the VPN should be used for work related activity only.
Wikipedia on VPN.

Install an up-to-date anti-virus program

When sending your employees home, make sure their work devices are protected. For example, virus checkers and firewalls or they won’t be able to work securely from their home office.

Password checks

No, this does not mean you have to have access to all of the passwords of your employees, but remind them to update their passwords regularly and make sure they use complex passwords.

Work securely from a home office

Maintain an up-to-date system

Before sending your staff home, make sure all their devices are up-to-date. Windows Updates can cause problems here and there, which you want to avoid when they are home and do not know what to do.

Wi-Fi security

Strongly advise your home workers to change the password of their Wi-Fi on a regular basis, to avoid someone can hack into their routers and possibly steal data that way this is very important security for any home office.
As said before, do warn them not to connect to public Wi-Fi connections to prevent a possibly data breach this way.

Back-up

Encourage your staff to do daily backups of their systems, to avoid data or work loss.
If you have a CRM system with a drive attached to it, staff should upload there, if not, encourage them to use external drives to make back-ups.

Boost the team spirit

For many employees being a homeworker is a new experience. Given the reason why many people are working from home now, it is important to boost the team spirit and make sure people stay in communication with one another. Not only for the work efficiency, but also for the mental health of employees that are by themselves.
Motivate your staff to interact with each other, organize group facetime for a morning coffee from home, implement workouts through home exercise apps – mainly, make sure people stay calm and see life continues and that you do anything you can, in order for them to keep their jobs and security.

Not only should the PC be secured, these days it is also important to protect your smartphone, click here to read our 6 Tips to protect your smartphone.