As the number of remote teams and a hybrid workforce increases, the sophistication and amount of cybersecurity breaches have also increased. If your business takes care to implement best practices now, it is much more likely that you will avoid a security nightmare and save your company from suffering a breach or loss of access to critical data.

Cybersecurity Tips

These best practices are generally accepted by cybersecurity professionals as being very effective in preventing or at least minimizing a security breach. If your remote workforce puts them into practice, they can help defend your business against an attack.

• No Public Wi-Fi – Working out of a Starbucks may seem idyllic, but using their Wi-Fi can cause a host of problems. The lack of firewalls allows anyone using that network to easily hack into your company’s data. If you still want to work from Starbucks, set up a personal hotspot and VPN.
• Be Aware of Surroundings – Instruct your remote workers not to be careless with their work laptops. If they happen to be working in a public space, they should remain alert. They should make sure that sightlines are blocked; meaning, no one can sit behind them and watch/record everything they are doing. Employees should take their device with them to the restroom and avoid leaving it in a car.
• Encrypt Stored Data – In the case that a device is stolen, you can avoid the disaster of a data breach if the data on your device is encrypted. Make sure remote workers are using devices that are set to encrypt all stored data.
• Enable Email Encryption – Emails are another point of vulnerability for remote workers. It’s a good idea to encrypt the data attached to any email to prevent an unintended recipient from viewing the information.
• Disable External Drives – USB drives are some of the most popular vehicles for bad actors to use to install malware. They will install malware onto thumb drives and distribute them so unsuspecting workers would pick one up and plug it into their device. With cloud storage solutions, there’s little reason to use external drives of any type. Consider disabling them on work devices.
• Train Employees to Recognize Signs of a Breach and Report Immediately – Some things that should tip off a breach are:

– An alert from the anti-malware software indicating that a virus or malware is present.

– A new homepage or default search engine comes up unexpectedly.

– A sudden and significant decrease in application performance.

– A sudden increase in spam and pop-ups.

– Frequent error messages.

• Keep Employees Away from Nefarious Websites – Torrent and pirating websites will obviously expose your business to a host of malware. Most companies will have an explicit prohibition against employees going to such sites on work devices.

Remote and hybrid work has become popular among employees and business owners, but the threat of a security breach can’t be overlooked. Train employees and implement cybersecurity best practices now.

Contact us at 800.787.4848 or jnolte@ctsmd.us to learn more about safeguarding your communications technologies.