Technology has made it easier to connect people across a long distance, and as a result, the traditional workplace — with physical co-location of employees — has become far less of a necessity than in years past. The remote workforce is growing rapidly, and those with the ability to do their work from home enjoy a degree of flexibility that previous generations simply didn’t.

However, that flexibility has created a new burden on cybersecurity — one that the home-based employee must learn to manage effectively without being confined to an organization’s corporate systems that help to maintain a cyber defense.

To help remote employees get their security sorted out and optimized to protect their companies, and themselves, we recommend a few best practices:

1. Keep work and personal computing on separate devices. It can be tempting to take a shortcut by using your home computer to get work done. But if that practice results in a data breach for your employer, things will get complicated very quickly. In short, it simply isn’t worth the risk — use your work computer for work purposes, and your home computer for personal use.
2. Use a VPN, and choose carefully. A virtual private network protects your privacy online by obscuring your connecting address. But this only works if the VPN provider is committed to protecting your privacy and has the right safeguards in place. Generally, a subscription service is a better option than a free provider.
3. Stay in your lane. Organizations are segmenting their networks to regulate data access and limit the amount of data hackers can do. Moving data from approved locations on the network to your home computer undermines their security efforts.
4. Be careful about password managers. Some of these products are better than others at keeping your information protected. While you certainly don’t want to write down your password and leave it in the open for anyone to see, you also don’t want to hand it to a security-challenged vendor. Use a password manager that frequently fixes bugs and keeps its product ahead of the curve.

The home office can be both flexible and secure for employees who put in the effort and keep to cyber best practices. While Lunarline can’t force remote workers to follow every last guideline, we can help your organization build the right safeguards to mitigate potentiual damages from a work-from-home arrangement.

For information on how we can help you, contact Lunarline today!