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Top 5 Steps to Securely Work from Home
Top 5 Steps to Securely Work from Home
- You: First and foremost, technology alone cannot fully protect you – you are the best defense. Attackers have learned that the easiest way to get what they want is to target you, rather than your computer or other devices. If they want your password, work data or control of your computer, they’ll attempt to trick you into giving it to them, often by creating a sense of urgency. For example, they can call you pretending to be a help desk staff and claim that your computer is infected. Or perhaps they send you an email warning that a package could not be delivered, fooling you into clicking on a malicious link. The most common social engineering attacks include: trying to create a tremendous sense of urgency (I need you to to this now!!), asking you to bypass normal business operations, or pretending to be a colleague or friend but the wording does not sound like them. Additionally, be sure you use your work device for only work-related activities. It's tempting to start to use your work device for more personal activity, but minimizing that crossover between work and personal will greatly reduce the likelihood you compromise your work device and the data/information that is on it. While we monitor risk activity through our antivirus software on work issued devices, it is not a perfect solution / guarantee that we can remotely stop every possible threat.
- Home Network: Almost every home network starts with a wireless (Wi-Fi) network. This is what enables all of your devices to connect to the Internet. Most home wireless networks are controlled by your Internet router or a separate, dedicated wireless access point. Both work in the same way: by broadcasting wireless signals to which home devices connect. This means securing your wireless network is a key part of protecting your home. Three things you can do now if you haven't already are: change the default administrative password on your home router (you can often times google how to do this or contact your internet service provider for instructions), allow only trusted individuals access to your network (don't give out your WiFi password to people you don't know or trust), and make all of your passwords strong (best practices recommend using a password with special characters, a mixture of numbers and letters, capital and lower case and having at least 12 to 15 characters total - more on that below).
- Passwords: When a site asks you to create a password, create a strong password: the more characters it has, the stronger it is. Using a passphrase is one of the simplest ways to ensure that you have a strong password. A passphrase is nothing more than a password made up of multiple words, such as “bee honey barrel.” Using a unique passphrase means using a different one for each device or online account. This way if one passphrase is compromised, all of your other accounts and devices are still safe. If you are having a hard time remember all of these passwords, consider using a password manager. We recommend 1password and LastPass.
- Update your Software: Cyber attackers are constantly looking for new vulnerabilities in the software your devices use. When they discover vulnerabilities, they use special programs to exploit them and hack into the devices you are using. Meanwhile, the companies that created the software for these devices are hard at work fixing them by releasing updates. By ensuring your computers and mobile devices install these updates promptly, you make it much harder for someone to hack you. To stay current, simply enable automatic updating whenever possible. This rule applies to almost any technology connected to a network, including not only your work devices but Internet-connected TV’s, baby monitors, security cameras, home routers, gaming consoles or even your car.
- Family and Friends: Make sure your family and friends know they cannot use your work devices. They can accidentally erase or modify information, or, perhaps even worse, accidentally infect the device. Bethel does maintain antivirus software on laptops we issue which track and block all risky behavior but with support difficult during this period of time we recommend not taking the chance of sharing a device.