Securely Working From Home

The COVID-19 pandemic took everyone by surprise.  Businesses have been forced to close their doors to employees and customers.  The result has been a flood of businesses adopting Work From Home (WFH) policies.

 

Unfortunately, the rapid deployment of teleworking options has, in many cases, created significant security issues.  Business owners should be aware of the multitude of potential pitfalls that employees working from home may present.  Simply setting up VPN (virtual private network) tunnels may seem like a secure way to protect your business network but in fact, may have the exact opposite effect.

 

Imagine this scenario.

Let’s say one of your employee’s – Mark – is working from home.  Mark is a very trustworthy and valued staff member and would never do anything to cause harm to the company.  Mark is diligent and uses a VPN tunnel to securely connect to this computer in the office or the file server.  Great – right?  Unfortunately what Mark didn’t realize is that another member of the house had previously gone to a website or opened an email that installed a virus – or worse, ransomware – on the home computer a few nights ago.  While Mark is working on that big presentation for your largest client, all of a sudden the screen blanks out and a message comes up that all files on the work computer and the file server are now corrupt.

 

This may sound a bit far-fetched but the likelihood of this scenario coming true is far to great to leave to chance.  Make certain your employees are properly protecting your business by providing them the security tools they need and imposing strict policies on how and when to access company files.

 

Employees using home computers to perform telework typically do not keep their systems as up to date and secure as those in the office.  Most have not secured their home networks.  Wi-fi service may not be locked down with solid passwords.  All of these issues can have devastating impacts on company networks and assets.

 

Warnings from Microsoft, Department of Homeland Security and others.

Microsoft has begun issuing warnings about sophisticated ransomware attacks targeting remote workers.  See their security blog post at  https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/04/01/microsoft-works-with-healthcare-organizations-to-protect-from-popular-ransomware-during-covid-19-crisis-heres-what-to-do/

 

BMA Enterprises provides cost-effective, secure remote access solutions via our WFH package.  To learn more about our solution, please visit www.bmaenterprises.com/secure-remote-access-limited-time-offer.