Working from home securely: stop sofa hackers now with these 6 steps

We have put together this practical list of the top 6 steps you need to take to help you and your team stay secure whilst working from home. After you have gone through these 6 steps, get in touch if you want to learn how Naq Cyber could help protect your business.

#1. Only use company equipment

When working from home it can be tempting to use your personal devices to do your work. It is important that you only use the devices that have been provided to you by your company. The most important things to remember are:

• Do not plug in any personal USB sticks or external hard-drives to your work computer
• Do not email work to your personal email address so you can work on it on your personal device
• Avoid downloading anything from your personal email or social media accounts onto your work computer

#2. Physically secure your computers and phones

When you are not using your devices make sure they are shut down (not put to sleep or hibernated) or turned off and kept in a secure location in your home.

#3. Be careful who can see and hear sensitive company information

Be vigilant of of who can see your screen when you are working. Also, make sure you have any work conversations away from anybody who can overhear you.

#4. Be on the look out for Corona/COVID-19 scams

Criminals are taking advantage of this pandemic by launching new campaigns to steal your information and infect your systems. The attackers are taking advantage of peoples’ fear and these emails can look very convincing (see here). Criminals are also using Corona virus infection maps to spread viruses (more information here).

Make sure you are extra careful when opening emails which are related to the corona virus/COVID-19. We recommend that you go directly to an official government website for information and do not click on any links in these emails.

#5. Use a VPN

Whilst your work WiFi network might be secure, your home network may not be; especially if you share this connection with other people such as flat mates or your family. To protect any sensitive company information you should use a trusted VPN such as our partner Nord VPN.

#6. Update your operating system and anti-virus

Make sure that you install any Operating System updates. This is the best way to stop attackers stealing your information. The instructions for Windows 10 are here and for MacOS are here.

It is also important that you keep your Anti Virus product up to date and set it to regularly run scans (if you are reading this and it hasn’t scanned in a while, do a scan now!). If you do not have anti-virus we recommend purchasing one from a trustworthy supplier such as our partner Avira or enabling Windows Security on your Windows 10 computer.

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