The COVID-19 virus is having significant impacts on businesses large and small. One of the effects is how people are working so they can minimize the possibility of getting infected while continuing to be productive. Many companies are telling staff to work from home, which presents its own set of challenges from an IT perspective. As a small to medium business what do you need to consider when making the decision to ask staff to work from home?
Physical Security – Today’s devices often contain some form of either customer or company data, both of which need to be protected from prying eyes and unauthorized access. When staff start working from home there are two options, they do so on their own home computer, or on a laptop provided by their employer. Laptop users need to be aware that data on that portable machine needs to be protected, in particular from theft of the device.
- Laptops are constantly targets of thieves, be vigilant
- Do not leave it unattended in public places such as a coffee shop
- Do not leave it visible in the interior of an unattended vehicle
- Do lock it in the trunk or rear storage area of your vehicle, even if you are driving straight home
- Do avoid carrying it in an identifiable laptop bag, use a generic style carrier like a courier or brief bag
- Do use a laptop locking cable if you are using a laptop in a public place
Digital Security – Because someone is working from home does not mean you can be less vigilant about protecting their machine and data. All machines should have the following protections in place, whether on premises or offsite.
- Anti Virus
- Anti Malware
- Anti Phishing
- Properly configured Firewall
- DNS protection
- Remote access for IT staff
- VPN for remote access to corporate servers and data (offsite machines)
All of the above should be managed by your IT provider, and kept current no matter the employees location or device. Employee owned devices should have the same corporate software for digital security as a corporate owned device. Remote access to corporate servers and data should be done over a secure VPN tunnel, not an RDP connection. The requirements to use RDP access are much simpler, however open RDP firewall ports on the client and server side are a constant target for hackers brute force attacks.
If you are already an F8 Technology Managed IT Services client this is all in place for you already, we’ll just need to coordinate configuration of clients home machines or new laptops if applicable. If you are not an F8 client, please feel free to contact us to discuss your needs.
