The corona virus pandemic that has gripped the United States — and the entire world — has effectively changed many aspects of day-to-day life. This includes scores of businesses giving their employees the benefit of working from home instead of coming into the office to potentially exchange germs with co-workers.
This headline news really underscores the importance of facilitating remote workers for your business, and doing so in a secure fashion. Even when not in the midst of a medical emergency, many companies have staff members that work from home. Pinning down best cybersecurity practices for remote workers can be invaluable to businesses of all kinds.
The following are some fairly easy steps you can take to protect your network from the hazards of remote workers.
- Implement robust endpoint security. Endpoint security protects a network that is accessible by a variety of devices. Both personal and business devices need to be armed with the most updated versions of software so that they will effectively keep out cybersecurity risks. This takes diligence, but is not overly difficult to achieve.
- Invest in a solid VPN. You’ve likely heard us talk about Virtual Private Networks here before and that’s because they are ultra effective in protecting users when they are using a public network. Through a VPN, you are able to protect your IP address and encrypt traffic, thus, protecting you while using a private network.
- Train employees and monitor their activity. No, this is not spying on your employees — having measures in place that track their behaviors while using the business network is important to see if they are committing any potentially costly errors. Also, it never hurts to develop a formal curriculum to educate employees on the potential dangers of working remotely and what they can do to protect themselves.
Whether out of necessity, or convenience, remote working is becoming much more common and it’s a trend that is expected to continue long into the future.
For companies with remote workers, it’s possible to have cybersecurity that is just as comprehensive and robust as a businesses that have all their employees under the same roof.
But, you have to be intentional about your strategy and, of course, it never hurts to work with proven IT professionals that can highlight soft spots in your security and install measures in place to provide adequate protection.