Keeping your data secure in times of business as unusual

1) Secure your remote working policy - cyber criminals are always on the lookout for new opportunities and this rapid global change was the feast they had been waiting for. They are experienced in looking at a network to see whether someone is just a home user or a business user working at home. So, if you aren’t helping to protect your employees with a secure remote working policy, you could soon find yourself with widespread data loss or even blocked from your important files with a hefty fee to pay to regain access.

2) Be extra wary of phishing attacks - industry reports have shown a significant rise in bogus emails¹ claiming to offer important updates on safety, which instead infect the user’s device with malware. Make sure your remote employees know to be cautious of emails offering this kind of advice, checking who the sender is and that their email address exactly matches an expected recipient. And if someone is asking them to click on an unknown link, to think twice before opening it.

3) Don’t forget about home device security – if your teams are now working from home, co-working spaces or remotely, it’s most likely that they’ll need to use whatever printer or scanner they have available for their daily tasks and these devices probably aren’t going to have the standard security features provided by your corporate network equipment. Any device connected to the internet is vulnerable to potential attack, so, to safeguard your business critical data, you need to give your remote workers support in ensuring that their network is private and can only be accessed with a secure password – by changing the default password, for example.

4) And confidential paperwork - to that same end, you need to ensure they’re treating company paperwork with the same care as they would their own bank statements, making sure they shred or safely store anything confidential until they’re able to return to the office.

5) The best policy is to have one - document security is critical, so working remotely doesn’t mean company policies can be relaxed. It’s important to remind your team to only use applications, networks and cloud systems provided by the business. Any free cloud collaboration and storage tools they might be tempted to use may not be secure if they’ve not been vetted by you.