The Covid19 pandemic has added another wrinkle into the world of cyber security.
There are many new work-from-home arrangements. Even the Dataman Group staff works from home occasionally. While these offer advantages for both employees and employers, it also presents new security risks and challenges.
It’s a fact that cyberthieves often view remote workers as “soft targets”. They think they can compromise them to get to sensitive company data. In fact, research shows that home networks are 350% more likely to contain malware than a corporate network.
Hackers continue to get more and more sophisticated. I get phishing emails that look so authentic, that it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s a scam. It’s no secret that many of us have clicked on things by mistake. That opens up a huge can of worms when it affects a business system. After all, we have data to protect!!
As we move into 2021, businesses need to think about their company’s cyber-protection.
Cyber Security Best Practices
These are some best practices, courtesy of Morgan Stanley’s Cyber Security Tips for remote workers:
- Create a remote work policy: Define and communicate your cyber security expectations for employees through a detailed remote work policy.
- Provide regular cybersecurity training: Refresh your mandatory training when new cyber-threats emerge. Consider testing employee security awareness by sending them faux phishing emails and critiquing their responses to them.
- Restrict access: Follow the principle of least privilege. This means that only grant employees access to the systems and information that they require to perform their job.
- Keep track of third parties: Maintain an updated record of the third-party companies engaged by your organization. Be clear about the security standards they must follow. Understand how they’ve configured your tools on their end.
Bottom line, we all need to protect our resources from cyber thieves and hackers.