The growing pandemic of COVID-19 has forced significant adjustments to our operations. In addition, it has altered the places where we conduct business. As a result of social distance protocols, several companies have sent workers home to complete their assignments. Since this method seems to work, more people may work from home in the future than ever before.
In certain areas, such as cybersecurity, it’s a beneficial method to keep operations running, but it also poses risks. As a result, when people are working in an office setting, they often don’t give much thought to the safety of their own devices. They are now increasingly responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their data and the company’s sensitive information. Your company’s training program should include cybersecurity instruction To keep everyone on the same page. Here are some important things to consider.
Be Clear About the Risks
It doesn’t matter how often you remind your new remote employees to secure their gadgets; if they don’t fully grasp the gravity of the situation, they won’t take it as seriously as they should. Cybersecurity is a big problem in the world, and if an employee isn’t careful, they could unknowingly let a breach happen, which could hurt the company and their jobs. If you tell your employees how important safety is, they may be more responsible.
In the past few years, cybercrime and social engineering attacks have been tried on more than 62% of businesses. The costs of these attacks can be impossible to pay back, and when your customers’ information is stolen, they may stop trusting you. This isn’t good for business. 60% of these issues were caused by human error or new employees.
Teach your employees about how far cybercrime can go. Teach them to think critically about any app or tool they use and ensure they are using it correctly and safely. Security becomes even more important when companies use online meetings and video conferencing tools to help employees work together. If you leave your webcam on, hackers can hack it. Hackers can take over even software like Zoom. As a first lesson, show your workers how to use passwords correctly. Weak passwords are one of the best ways for hackers to get into your tools and steal your data since they are the key to them. So tell them to use passwords with letters, numbers, and special characters that are hard to guess and that they should change them every month or two.
Educate About Common Scams
Hackers are more careful with their scams now that they know many people work from home and may not have the same security as they did at the office. If you don’t teach your workers about these common tricks, they could be the next ones to fall for them. No scam is too obvious. Some hackers are so bold that they leave a USB drive outside a house or coffee shop for employees to pick up and plug into their computers. This is one of the basic path to get a virus onto a computer.
The phishing scams that cybercriminals use continue to work. Basically, they are emails sent to personal and business email addresses that look like they came from a trusted source. But actually has a malicious link or attachment in it. When the recipient opens either of these, malware is released, and hackers can do whatever they want on the system. With COVID-19, hackers have been sending fake alerts and meeting notifications to get people to click on them by playing on their emotions.
Teach your team about the red flags of phishing scams, such as:
- Emails that have a lot of spelling mistakes.
- Your email may contain unexpected links or files..
- Greetings like “Dear Sir” or “To Whom It May Concern” are general.
- Emails that look like they are from an official source but come from a general email service like Gmail or Yahoo.
There is also the Trojan attack, which uses software that looks real and helpful, like a security update. But is harmful code that puts your data at risk as soon as you install it. Because of these things, employees should know they should contact their IT team whenever they see something strange on their computers.
Using Personal Devices
If your employees work from home, they may be more likely to want to use their computers, phones, and tablets to do their jobs. But as a general rule, try to keep work and personal devices as separate as possible. Through email, a breach on their cell phone could be sent to the company device, putting both their personal and professional lives at risk.
In order to protect yourself at home as well as at work, you should use the same security measures you do at work. Please do the same thing in your home office as they do at the office with important papers. Company computers should have antivirus software, two-step authentication, and data encryption all set up and running. Teach your workers to use these security measures on their devices, too.
Many workers may also work at a restaurant or coffee shop instead of at home. Hackers have other tricks, like the man-in-the-middle attack, that can be used against them when they are out in public. This is a fake Wi-Fi account that the hacker set up to look like the real network at the business. When you connect, you are connecting to the hacker’s device. Human Resources should make a policy about how employees should act when they’re not in the office and have them sign it, so they know that security is also their job.
You may feel more freedom when you start working from home for the first time. However, that freedom can be dangerous if you don’t take the proper precautions. If you teach your employees now, you won’t have to feel bad about it later.
