Securing your work (from home)

In the fight against Covid 19 raging around the globe we are all finding ourselves doing our bit. In most of our cases, we fight back by maintaining social distance. Social distancing saves lives. Your life and those of others.

In an effort to help all the home warriors to work efficiently I posted a blog post to help you work more effectively from home. 

In this post I’ll tell you how you can secure your work from home environment and protect yourself and your home against cyber threats. 

As a part of a hyper connected society, for a lot of us setting up working from home wasn’t a complicated task and now that work has started from home, it is time to make sure that you are safe from cyber threats. 

Why is this important? Good question, glad you asked. Home environments are generally not prepped with a security point of view. This post will help you take care of this issue, lets begin.

In order to mitigate any possible threats try to implement the following:

1. Secure Router: First things first. Secure your router. Many, many, many, maaaany people get a router and never configure it for security. To secure your router, first create a secure password for the administrative login. Once you have done this, you can then proceed to create an SSID name for your network. Choose a name that is simple. The best practice is to not broadcast your SSID. This will mean that when people have to hook on to your network, they will not only have to know the password, but the SSID too.  
2. Use secure passwords: Review your passwords for security. Avoid reusing passwords for different accounts. You can use any online random password generator (see https://www.random.org/strings/) to create secure, hard to predict passwords.
3. Set up 2 factor Authentication: Consider this as a second layer of protection. If the apps that you use allow 2FA, activate them. Read this if you want to know more about multi factor authentication.
4. VPNs: I know this may not be available for everyone, but having said this, if you can, use a VPN. This will help in further securing your work from prying eyes.
5. Antivirus and firewall: These apps help you protect against malicious software that may find its way to your PC. If you are an Apple user, have a look at Kaspersky. Windows 10 users are in luck as it ships with a world class antivirus and firewall. Windows defender also offers the sandbox feature which essentially protects your PC’s critical processes.
6. Regular Updates: Always make sure that the devices that you work on are up to date with the latest updates. This simple yet important action goes a long way towards ensuring the stability and security of your devices.
7. Maintain Backups: No setup us invulnerable to failures and as such I advise to prepare for data loss eventualities. I have covered the back topic in detail here, should you wish to read it.

Once you have done this, you can be assured that you now have a way more secure and robust network at home to work and play on. I hope this helps :)

Evomatiq Business Solutions LLC is an enterprise software solutions company based in Dubai, UAE. We help businesses of all sizes get the most out of their business solutions and improve their processes for more profitability. Get in touch with us today to know how we can bring you value.