Protect against cyber crime when working from home

With the current pandemic the majority of businesses of all sizes have been forced to operate remotely with staff working from home. This in itself creates potential vulnerabilities for the business networks. Networks confined to corporate locations can be fairly easily managed, secured and monitored effectively. Now take your staff of let's say 100 people and have them in their homes connected to business network. Now the potential risk of cyber-attack has been multiplied by 100. What can businesses do to make sure that the network and the company data is protected? Here are some tips that can help:

Secure remote connections
Implement Remote Desktop Services (or equivalent), this will give staff the ability to remote onto the company server using their own profile. Files and data are not transferred outside the network, everything stays within secure and managed grounds. If Remote Desktop Services is not available use client VPNs (Virtual Private Network) on the staff computers ensuring that connections made into the company network are through a secure tunnel.

Anti-virus, malware and ransomware protection
Many companies have allowed staff to take company computers to their homes in order to carry on working, in these cases, and if the business has rolled out corporate anti-virus measures, the computers will be protected. If however staff are using their own computers, reduce the risk of threats coming into the corporate network by ensuring that the computers/laptops are adequately protected with Anti-Virus, Anti Ransomware and Anti Malware software

Multi Factor Authentication
Introduce an extra layer of security into corporate resources by employing multi-factor authentication. This will require additional authentication, usually by sending a code to a mobile device or email every time the user wishes to log on. This will be in addition to the standard, and hopefully secure, passwords already employed.

Emails
With the current pandemic, cyber criminals have increased their activity and their methods of attack. Make sure all staff are aware of this increased activity and to be extra vigilant when using the corporate email system. Never reply back to anyone that you don't recognise, and never click on any attachments or links that cannot be verified. A single click on a link or attachment can potentially compromise personal and business data.

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