lead-forensics

Security best practices for remote workers

Working from home increases employee autonomy, cuts costs, and ensures the health and safety of the company during the coronavirus pandemic. The problem is, it also increases the likelihood of security breaches since employees are working outside the company’s security perimeter. That’s why you and your staff must adhere to these security best practices.

Fortify user accounts

When everyone is working remotely, user accounts must be properly secured. One way to achieve this is by setting at least 12-character long passwords with numbers and special characters mixed in to make them more difficult to guess. More importantly, these passwords must be unique to each account, to minimize the damage if hackers do manage to compromise one set of credentials. If you find it difficult to generate and remember login details for all your accounts, consider password managers like LastPassDashlane, and Keeper.

To further strengthen your accounts, however, you’ll also need to enable multifactor authentication (MFA). This adds another layer of identity verification — like fingerprint scans or one-time activation codes generated by SMS — to make it more difficult for cybercriminals to hijack your accounts.

Use a virtual private network (VPN)

VPNs are primarily known for circumventing geographic restrictions on location-specific websites and streaming services, but they’re also a crucial tool for remote workers. A reliable VPN creates secure connections between devices and networks by encrypting internet traffic. This hides web activity from prying eyes, protecting your employees’ online privacy, and mitigating the risk of hackers stealing company information.

Patch your software regularly

Although installing software updates can be a major nuisance, they cover critical weaknesses and protect your systems from the latest threats. Most apps now offer an automatic update feature so you don’t have to manually patch your software.

Another option for your business is patch management software. These track patches on employee devices and distribute the most recent updates on a company-wide scale.

Set up firewalls and antivirus software

Make sure to enable firewalls in your operating systems and hardware. These provide a strong layer of protection between your device and the internet, preventing malicious programs and other network threats from reaching your device. Your managed IT services provider (MSP) may also provide third-party firewalls in case your computers don’t have any built in by default.

In addition to firewalls, you’ll also want to implement antivirus software to detect and remove any malicious programs that do manage to find their way onto your device. Just remember to constantly update the software so it can effectively detect the newest malware.

Secure home routers

Home Wi-Fi routers are not as thoroughly secured as their business counterparts so take extra precautions to safeguard them. For starters, change your router password as soon as possible because hackers can easily break into them once they know the router model. You should also install the latest firmware updates to eliminate any security vulnerabilities.

Finally, check whether your router has Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) encryption settings to secure inbound and outbound traffic. If your router doesn’t have this setting, you’re overdue for an upgrade.

Back up your data

Important files must be backed up regularly in the cloud and your external hard drive. This way, you’ll always have a copy of your files in case of a major data loss incident like ransomware or a power outage.

Watch out for online scams

The biggest threat remote workers face is online scams. Phishing emails may entice you with free coronavirus test kits in exchange for personal information. Some cybercriminals may even masquerade as legitimate companies, CEOs, or friends to trick you into clicking on dangerous links and attachments.

To avoid these threats, you must be critical of everything you see online. Look for any suspicious links and attachments, grammatical errors in the email body, and misspelled email addresses. Plus, never give out sensitive information to an unsolicited email, text message, or phone call.

Working from home poses many cybersecurity challenges for businesses, but you don’t have to address them alone. If you need guidance with setting up firewalls, avoiding scams, and even enabling MFA, we can provide the IT support you need in this difficult time. Call us now.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.
Headshots Adam 1 thegem person

Adam

Help Desk

Adam was in the Navy before he joined our team in 2015. He is cool under pressure and a calming influence on the help desk. Perhaps this is because, after staring down Somali pirates off the coast of Africa, printer and email problems don’t seem so intimidating! Adam likes to shoot things (not people – thought we should make that clear), play Xbox, and of course, shoot things on Xbox! A husband of fourteen years with two children, he has been all over the world and still calls Central Texas his home. His teammates say, “Adam has an incredible memory when it comes to our clients. He remembers names, Internet settings, applications and printers!”
Headshots Tyler thegem person

Tyler

Projects Team Lead
Tyler cut his technological teeth through four years both in part-time work and in working with one of our telephony partners. Tyler loves working and learning, and has built a larger network at his home than 90% of our clients have in their businesses! He is thoughtful with his own money, preferring to buy a home and drive an old truck rather than pay rent and car payments. His hobbies of woodworking and gardening dovetail nicely with home ownership! He’s been known to play a bit of electric guitar, he enjoys 3D modeling and printing, and drives a gray Mustang GT that he’s modded as completely as his computers! Several of our team were in the wedding party when he got married!
Headshots Aaron thegem person

Aaron Johnstone

Help Desk Manager
With more patience than Job and more experience than most people in IT today, Aaron is the go-to guy for challenging problems. He directs our team both in the maintenance and help-desk functions. Aaron has been in IT for over twenty years and has played nearly every role possible EXCEPT, he reminds us, Sales. We can test almost every system in our client base on Aaron’s home network because it’s extensive and complex. When he isn’t tinkering with computers, he loves to read, play video games with his kids, and run. Aaron’s been married to his wife for twenty-one years and they have two daughters and a son. His teammates say, “I can always count on him to have my back. If I can’t find the answer, Aaron knows where to look!”
Headshots Eli thegem person

Eli Meier

COO | CTO
Eli is our jack-of-all-trades. His degree is in English, and he intended to teach before he discovered a natural aptitude for computers. He combines the two in his role at Lighthouse, as he has a unique ability to explain complex technology in relatable, understandable conversation. Over more than twenty years working in IT, he’s written e-commerce programs for a university, set up an email cluster for a major league baseball team, and managed/executed hundreds of IT projects. He enjoys classic Volkswagens, cooking and barbeque, and hiking and camping. He and his wife have been married twenty-one years and have nine kids. Though he is 6’1”, he is the SHORTEST male in his entire extended family. We all feel badly for him.
Headshots Ray thegem person

Ray Wilson

Chief Executive Officer
Ray is our CEO and he is passionate about helping businesses – both ours and our clients’ – succeed. Except for Skip, he’s probably been involved with IT longer than anyone – he was troubleshooting computers and repairing them at his school when he was seven! As an intern while attending UMHB, he was involved with IT, but really started growing when he joined our team in 2005. When he transitioned most of our clients to managed services, our MSP business was truly born, and we then grew it from five to forty people between 2006 and 2016. In that time, he was a help desk tech, business processes consultant, account manager, salesperson, sales engineer, client services manager, sales manager, and COO. If you want to get his juices flowing, challenge him to any team sport or ask him to go snow skiing. He’s been married to his high school sweetheart fourteen years and they have three high-energy boys. Oh… and both of his parents are also small business entrepreneurs.

Schedule Your Consultation Now

Just fill our the form below and we'll get right back to you.