In the last few years, more people have started working from home or in hybrid settings, and in doing so, showing a number of advantages for both employers and employees. These working practices do present their own challenges, one of the biggest being Cyber security.
It is usually far easier to protect your business's cyber security from an office or singular location; the issues tend to arise when your employees are working from other locations. Luckily, there are a few pieces of advice that you can pass on to your workers;
Public Wi-Fi may not be secure; while your staff may like to get out of the house occasionally and work in their local coffee shop or library, this is not recommended. Public Wi-Fi can cause several problems for your staff, but it all comes down to the lack of security and the device or system's vulnerability.
Public Wi-Fi can be used to hack into your personal device and compromise stored data. If your staff do like to work from these places, they should do so using by using a VPN service or a personal hotspot.
Depending on the security of your office or mainly where your staff choose to work from when they are working remotely, it is important that they never leave their work devices unattended.
Unfortunately, in some cases, there are times when people get their work devices stolen or sensitive data copied when working in public spaces such as coffee shops or airports. Thefts are common but may be easily avoided.
Therefore, it is strongly recommended that staff never leave their work devices unattended; losing a work device is not only costly for the business but also for your reputation should a device with sensitive data on it be lost or stolen.
Your staff should all be working from devices that allow them to encrypt their data. This will then help them should their devices be stolen, preventing others from breaching their data. A lot of businesses should encourage staff not to use personal devices when handling sensitive work data.
Therefore providing hardware and software to staff that successfully encrypts their data is important. Using work devices encrypted with software when working remotely using cloud backup can provide a layer of security when transferring important files by using a secure server.
Using Texport’s Cyber security and Cloud services can allow your business to be safe when handling sensitive information.
Contacting IT support if you find yourself in a complex situation can be very beneficial to make sure that you do not make any mistakes and put your data at risk. Texaport’s Outsourced IT Support provides fast and reliable solutions to any issue that your business may have for your employees working away from the office, preventing any data loss and ensuring the safety of their computers.
Finally, one of the simplest cyber security tips for your business, regardless of whether your staff are working remotely or in the office, is to encourage the use of strong passwords. A lot of other security measures can be rendered redundant by the adoption of a weak password.
Remember to encourage your staff to create secure, unique passwords that are changed regularly. The passwords that they use for work should also ideally be different to any personal passwords that they have. These steps, combined with the use of Multi-Factor Authentication, can add a strong layer of safety to your employee’s accounts.
Alternative working practices like hybrid or remote working have increased in popularity over the last few years, and there is no sign of this popularity decreasing. Therefore you need to prioritise your Cyber security more than ever, as remote working can pose more of a threat to your data than working in a traditional office. Texaport offers many cyber security solutions which can be transformative to your hybrid working approach, so be sure to check them out.
At Texaport, we understand the importance of these advancements, and we work with our clients to put a reliable system in place to improve their business efficiency. Our team has a wide range of IT knowledge and remains acquainted with the movements in the IT industry. Find out more here.
