The outbreak of COVID-19 is forcing us to rethink how we work. With the influx of remote employees, the cybersecurity sector has been busier than ever. From securing work environments to defining new security policies, we achieved what had previously been deemed impossible.
But with that big change in our work habits comes a set of security risks that endangers our newly built home environments. Remote work may involve the use of personal devices, transfer of sensitive information over public networks, changes to authentication, and new security policies. If we modify the way we work, we also have to modify the way we protect ourselves from threats.
Presented with new, unique security challenges, we had to come up with best practices that ensure a streamlined experience of work-from-home. In this article, we gathered all these practices. Follow these tips to maintain a strong security posture of your company and protect your remote employees from security risks.
13 Best Cybersecurity Practices For Working From Home
1. Provide Security Awareness Training
Employee training has always been a vital part of any organization’s cybersecurity plan. An employee who understands the dangers that lurk around the corner is better prepared to face them. Hours spent on employee training are always worth it.
Spread cybersecurity awareness through security training. Educate your employees on remote access security, network security, password protection, and securing sensitive information and personal data. Take a big step and invest in an online course on information security, or take several small steps. For example, you might want to send your employees emails on best practices of remote work security. Such emails would contain information on MFA, password security, ransomware attacks, and phishing attacks.
Spreading security awareness mitigates the weakest link in cybersecurity: human error.
2. Mandate Password Managers
To ensure that passwords your employees use are long, complicated, and unique, enforce the use of password managers. There are several popular password managers you can choose from. Most password managers can be integrated with a web browser. Thanks to password managers, employees no longer have to remember their passwords, as passwords generated by password managers are always strong and never shared between multiple applications.
3. Use Antivirus
Antiviruses are a crucial part of any company’s security plan. Ensure all your employees have installed and updated their antivirus software. It is best to choose one antivirus and install this antivirus on every device your employees use for work. This way, you can create global policies and enforce them on all devices your employees use.
4. Deploy Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Deploy Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on all your applications, VPNs, and services. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is the cornerstone of today’s security. It is hard to imagine a company that misses this important element from its security plan. Require all your employees to use MFA to prevent 99.9% of account compromise attacks.
5. Create Custom Remote Work Policies
Remote working is different from working in the office. You need a unique set of policies for employees who work from home. Operating system password resets, resource access hours, stricter access control. Supervise all these policies to achieve higher security.
6. Decide BYOD
Bring your own device (BYOD) is a policy that permits employees to use their personal devices to work. Personal devices include but are not limited to smartphones, laptops, and tablets. If you decide to allow your employees to use their personal devices, ensure you recognize the threats associated with BYOD and know how to mitigate security risks that may stem from those threats. Educate your employees about protecting their personal devices with passwords and additional controls such as fingerprint locks.
7. Ensure Separated Workspaces
When working from home, employees need a quiet workspace that separates them from distractions. A private room is an ideal solution, but a secluded corner is also an option. Above all, remote workers should ensure that nobody else uses the devices they use for work. When employees are away from their devices, the devices must be locked so that they do not fall into the wrong hands. Device security is as important as account security.
8. Use a VPN
More often than not, remote workers need access to resources available only from inside the company’s network. To solve this issue, companies require employees to use a VPN. A VPN can be life-saving but is also a go-to tool for hackers to gain unauthorized access. To increase the security of your VPN connections, introduce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to all VPN logins and enforce strong access policies.
9. Ensure Wi-Fi Security
Remote workers should never access public Wi-Fi networks from personal devices they use for work.
Public Wi-Fi networks are vulnerable to attacks even when protected with a password. For example, a person who wants to use Wi-Fi at a coffee shop might connect to a fake Wi-Fi hotspot that allows the attacker to see all the person’s online traffic.
Your remote workers must ensure that their home Wi-Fi network is protected with a password and uses a secure protocol. The old and vulnerable Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is strongly discouraged. The newest and most secure WPA2 is the recommended choice.
10. Perform Regular Data Backups
It is better to prevent threats than to deal with them after they happen. Still, a company has to always be ready for the worst. That is why organizations need good strategies for quick recovery after a security incident. One of the simplest and yet most overlooked strategies is regular data backups. Remote employees should also be a part of this plan. Ensure remote workers have access to backups and that their data will still be intact after a security incident.
11. Increase Email Security
Your email account is the centerpiece of your cyber identity. Most password resets in applications involve sending a message to your email address. A malicious actor who gains access to your email account potentially has also gained access to your other accounts, applications, and services. To fight this vulnerability, deploy MFA for all your services, including the email accounts of your remote workers. Email encryption is also a good idea since communication that goes over the public network is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.
12. Perform Regular Updates
Regular updates of software are a must for both employees who work at the office as well as those who work from home. It may be harder to enforce updates on remote workers. That is why you must inform your employees about risks stemming from not updating your software. The newest version of the software is most likely the most secure. The latest updates may fix bugs and security holes still prevalent in older versions. Make your remote workers always update their software as soon as a new version is out. From computer operating systems, through mobile OS, to security applications such as mobile authenticator apps, your employees have to always be up to date.
13. Go Cloud
Research if you can migrate your business applications to the cloud. Not only does the cloud make access to these applications easier for employees who work from home, but also increases the security of your entire infrastructure. Many cloud applications come with up-to-date security features that conform to industry regulations. For example, Microsoft offers a cloud version of their applications – Office 365.
Your Remote Workers Need MFA
Follow the security best practices from this article to improve your company’s security posture. Now that the boundaries of your company reach beyond the walls of the office, your security policy has to be more airtight than ever.
Enabling Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is the crucial step on your journey to secure your employees. When looking for an MFA provider, search for a robust system that protects all your applications, VPNs, and workstations. In addition to that, every good MFA solution should support Adaptive Authentication.
Rublon Helps You Enforce Security Best Practices
Rublon is a comprehensive product that utilizes Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Single Sign-On (SSO), and Access Policies to provide top security solutions for companies of all sizes.
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