#WeekendWisdom 021 Securing The Work From Home Environment
Welcome to #WeekendWisdom number 21. This week we’re going to talk about securing the work from home environment.
Why do we need to be securing the work from home environment?
The COVID-19 pandemic came across us all very, very quickly and you may have been rushed to get your staff set up to work from home. If that’s the situation, then maybe you took some shortcuts while doing that. Now would be a good time to circle back and review your setup for your staff who are at home.
Are they using Personal Devices rather than company provided?
So the first thing that you need to look at is whether you provided your staff with company supplied devices to do the work. If you were unable to do so and you’re depending on them using their own personal desktops or laptops, you really need to get that addressed very, very quickly. You just don’t know what’s on those devices that belong to your staff. Anybody in their household could have access to the device. There could be any type of software and malware installed on them, that you just don’t know about. So supply them with a company secured device that they can use to work from home.
Is their home Wi-Fi secure?
The next thing then, is about their home network Wi-Fi. Is it secured? Does it require a password to sign in to the Wi-Fi? If it’s an open wireless network then that is again a significant risk. So you need to make sure that the network that they are connecting to, is secured.
Have they any “Smart” devices, Assistant speakers, CCTV?
Finally if they have any smart speakers in the house or they have internet connected CCTV cameras in their premises, you might want to talk to them about making sure that there is no smart speakers within listening range, if they’re on conference calls or conference chats. Similarly if they have internet connected CCTV, is that monitoring their desktop screen or laptop screen? That it could be transmitting what’s on their screen to the world. So get them to review that and take appropriate action to secure the data.
So that’s it for this week. Let’s be careful out there and we’ll talk to you again next week.