4 Cybersecurity Risks of Working Remotely
2020 was a year of endless challenges and adaptions to both a new way of living and working, and it has taken its toll. Right at the start, a lot of businesses particularly struggled with the shift to a distributed workforce. However, many have overcome the initial challenges of remote working and now fully embrace this new way of working.
Although remote working has several benefits for employees, it also has another side of the coin: it makes businesses much more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. And with cyber-attacks come data breaches, data loss, negative publicity, identity fraud, and many other business-damaging consequences.
Here are 4 security risks that could put your business’ data and security at risk if you offer your team the possibility to work from home:
1. Unsecure networks
The devices you’ve provided your staff with might be secure, but what most businesses forget is the network connection. Employees often connect to insecure home or public networks, leaving the door wide open for hackers on the hunt for your business’ data. While robust firewalls protect your business’ network, your employees home routers are generally not, which makes them susceptible for cyber-attacks.
2. Personal devices
Do you have your employees working from their personal devices? If so, getting them set up with a business-approved device should be on top of your list. Personal devices, especially laptops, smartphones, and printers, are nowhere near as secure as work devices. If personal devices aren’t encrypted or updated regularly, they can leave security gaps and make it easy for cybercriminals to steal your data. On top of that, you don’t have control over what is happening on personal devices. Your employees might save critical data on their devices without you being able to delete that data in case they ever leave your company.
3. Phishing Emails
Phishing emails don’t just pose one of the biggest security threats of remote working, they are one of the most successful cyber-attacks too. If your employees aren’t aware of the dangers, or haven’t received regular cyber-security training, they might not be able to detect scammer emails. Hackers impersonating business owners or colleagues can trick your employees into revealing sensitive data or login details. With the pandemic, phishing emails have been ever–evolving, which has made it much harder to detect them.
4. Weak passwords
Yes, something so simple as using a weak password can be a huge threat to your business. Hackers are well aware that very simple and easy-to-crack passwords are used for logging into accounts, and they will take advantage of that. And unfortunately, employees often use these passwords repeatedly across several other accounts, so they don’t need to memorize them. This means that once hackers have cracked one password, they’ll have their way blazed to all your other accounts too.
The challenge: Protecting your business
Your employees pose one of the biggest risks to your business security when working remotely. So, what’s the first step in making sure that your remote workforce is secure? Cyber-security is a problem that can’t be solved once and forever, as hackers will always find new and better ways to get to your data. But there are a few simple things you can start with to improve your security:
- Train your staff
The most important step towards improved security is training your staff. Ensure they’re aware of the security risks out there and follow the guidelines to protect from these risks. - Use Multi-factor Authentication
Make sure you’ve got multi-factor authentication for all your accounts in place. This adds another layer of protection and makes it harder for hackers to get to your data. - Create more complex passwords
Provide your employees with a password manager, where they can store passwords for different accounts. This will prevent them from using simple and repeated passwords and allow them to create complex and different ones for every account without remembering every single one of them. - Get a Cybersecurity Solution
Landmark offers comprehensive and robust cybersecurity services to protect your business from malicious attacks, whether they’re external or internal. Having your network fully protected means your data, and, therefore your business, is safe too.
Watch our webinar on cybersecurity, or contact us to book a free consultation to discuss your cybersecurity needs.
