What are the Security Threats of Work from Home?

With COVID-19 changing the way we work, employees using personal devices at home expose themselves to greater security risks.  Rest assured hackers and malware programs are working overtime to exploit gaps and security oversights.

So what should employers do to ensure their systems remain free of hacks, ransomware attacks, and viruses?

Some employees may think their home is secure and private, however, they most likely will still be less secure than any corporate infrastructures.  Employees’ home offices probably don’t have hardware firewalls in place, multifactor authentications, or VPN’s.   These should all be considered and implemented by someone who is well versed in IT.

One of the most prevalent problems facing employees working at home is email scams.  Yes, they have been around forever but are problematic and sophisticated.  Today’s “scammers” are getting smarter and some phishing scams are created to take advantage of the current work from home scenarios.  These scams can include names of company personnel and may send users to a fake login portal or ask workers to forward login information.

In today’s climate, companies are faced with making things up as they go along because often, they don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to the growing number of work from home offices.  It would be prudent to educate employees on current cyber-crimes and offer training to ensure best practices are adhered to. Multifactor authentication is a key component to prevent attacks.

It is important to provide the necessary steps to in keeping your systems secure and this should never come at the cost of security.  Remote work policies should be monitored and updated often.  Security is never complete because the latest generation of cyber-criminals are bolder and can adapt to endless scenarios.

This is where a company like Protected Harbor can help.  Protected Harbor helps businesses across the US address their current IT needs by building custom, cost-effective solutions.  Our unique technology experts evaluate current systems, determine the needs then design cost-effective solutions. On average, we are able to save clients up to 30% on IT costs while increasing their security, productivity, and durability.  We work with many internal IT departments, freeing them up to concentrate on daily workloads while we do the heavy lifting.  www.protectedharbor.com