Working from home is one of the many major social shifts brought by COVID-19. For the first time, millions of individuals are managing important work data outside of their workplace. Maintaining data protection in the workplace, where IT security officers manage the network and staff are in their job mindset, may be challenging enough. However, working at home introduces a new series of complications.
Our IT protection experts offer solutions for keeping your data secure when operating from home, from securing your home WiFi network to preventing getting deceived by negative social networking trends. Additionally, you will apply a few of the best practices outlined in our IT protection reference to the current scenario.
The following are some home internet protection tips that you can use to protect your computer.
Utilize your work device but safeguard it
Utilizing the personal computer for business purposes creates many possible vulnerabilities. It is likely to have a more significant number of non-essential programs enabled, such as gaming or torrenting apps, which could have been shared with other family members.
Therefore, it is preferable to obtain approval from your employer before bringing your machine home. However, your work computer is certainly already equipped with most of the programs and documentation necessary to do your job.
However, a necessary component of remotely accessing your work computer is recreating the safe atmosphere of your workplace. Allow no one else to use the work computer. Even if you operate from home with family, you should still keep your work computer safe. If you get up from your laptop, you can lock the computer at the very least.
Employers may also emphasize the importance of reporting missing or infected computers promptly such that Employers should take appropriate measures to protect confidential data.
Verify that all data is secured during storage.
Encrypt the hard drives of your work devices. This way, even though your device or phone is broken, your confidential data would stay safe. Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows devices all come equipped with built-in encryption schemes, but users must activate them. Additionally, make a note of your recovery code and keep it in a safe location.
Secure your accounts with strong, one-of-a-kind passwords.
Your job accounts’ credentials are the first line of security. Therefore, any of your profiles should have a unique, strong password (at least 16 characters long).
Two-factor authentication should be allowed on all of your accounts.
By enabling two-factor authentication (2FA) on your accounts, you will protect them from hostile third parties even though your password is breached. The most stable types of 2FA are apps that create one-time keys, such as Authy, or a hardware 2FA token, such as YubiKey. If you’re unsure if your provider allows two-factor authentication, you can search for this detailed collection.
Change the password for your home WiFi.
The majority of routers come pre-configured with a password. Unfortunately, these default passwords are often short (less than 16 characters) and spread through many routers, rendering them easily guessable. Even if you changed the password on your router when you first set it up, it’s worth changing it again, mainly if you shared it with others. To login to your router panel, open the IP address 192.168.15.1 or 192.168.254.254 in your web browser.
Disable broadcasting of the network’s name
Through disabling network name broadcasting, you will protect your WiFi network from malicious actors. It would prohibit your network from immediately appearing on any screen with WiFi enabled and mainly prevent anyone from linking to your WiFi invisibly. As long as you recognize the name of your WiFi network, you are not required to share it continuously; even if your work gadget has already signed in to your WiFi network, it can recall the link even if you disable the network name broadcasting. In your router’s settings, you can disable network name broadcasting (or SSID broadcasting).
Utilize a VPN
Utilize a trusted VPN to protect your online activities from trackers and your Internet service provider. ProtonVPN is an open-source, independently audited VPN provider that maintains no logs and has several protection features; unfortunately, these protection features such as Secure Core, a Kill Switch, and full-disk encryption.
Maintain current versions of both operating systems, services, and software
Software upgrades daily to address recently found glitches and weaknesses. If you are running an out-of-date app or operating system, the smartphone is vulnerable to known attacks.