Work from Home Cyber Security

Almost overnight, millions of people faced stay-at-home orders and began working from home. In an early study on COVID-19 and work from home, researchers from MIT, Stanford, and the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 34 percent of people surveyed were working from home full-time as early as the first week of April. 

Business models have changed due to the pandemic. As of 2023, 12% of full-time employees work from home and 28% work a hybrid model. It is estimated that 33 million Americans will work remotely by 2025.

Working from home presents cybersecurity challenges. The standard rules of security still apply: be careful for phishing attacks, use a VPN, lock your computer when away from your desk to keep the eager fingers of a child away from sensitive information, and only use known/secure wireless networks. For a lot of people, video conferences have become part of their daily work routine. 

Almost immediately after working from home became commonplace, hackers began targeting video-conference platforms. From a cybersecurity perspective, this should make all of us sit up and take notice as more and more confidential or strategic information is being exposed to people who are up to no good.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), provides guidance for secure video conferencing. This guidance is grounded in four principles with tips for each:

• Connect securely
  • Choose a generic name for your home Wi-Fi network to help mask who the network belongs to.
  • Change the default password on your router and Wi-Fi network to strong, complex passwords.
  • Ensure your home router is configured to use WPA2 or WPA3 wireless encryption.
• Control access
  • Require an access code or password to enter the event.
  • Manage policies to ensure only members from your organization or desired group can attend.
  • Enable “waiting room” features to see and vet attendees.
  • Lock the event once all intended attendees have joined.
• Manage file and screen sharing and recordings
  • Make sure all participants are aware the meeting is recorded and consider saving it locally rather than in the cloud.
  • Consider sensitivity of data before exposing it via screen share. Do not discuss information that you would not discuss over regular telephone lines.
• Update to latest versions of applications
  • Enable automatic updates to keep software up to date.
  • Develop and follow a patch management policy across the organization that requires frequent and continual application patching.
  • Use patch management software to handle and track patching for your organization.

Stay tuned for more topics from your Cyber Coaches. Is there something you want addressed by the team? Contact us at cybercoach@acuity.com.