Top Tips For Secure Remote Working

Are we facing an unprecedented pandemic, or will our fears be unfounded? It’s impossible to say right now, but global concerns over the current spread of coronavirus, and what will happen next with the outbreak is driving companies to review how their employees go about their daily tasks.

- Evan Dumas

Millions of people across Asia have started working from home. Leading tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and other employers have asked their workforce to log in remotely until the situation improves and the virus is contained. In light of all of this, enterprises such as JP Morgan have taken steps to test drive their remote working policies and infrastructure. This impending working paradigm shift means that every member of the workforce must prepare for the day when they are instructed to work from home.

Working from home is not complicated. Most of us do so now and again. Accessing an internet connection is easy enough, and cloud office suites and SaaS applications make it seamless to transition from working at the office to doing so on the couch in your living room. But most organisations will not have supported so many employees working remotely, and employees themselves may be a little out of practice in observing best practices when working from home.

So now is definitely the time to review and enhance security around remote access to corporate data, at both ends of the connection. Here are our top tips for secure remote working for employees, and for their employers.

BEST PRACTICES FOR EMPLOYEES

We naturally tend to be more relaxed at home, especially when it comes to security. After all, we’re in the safety of our own homes, so what could go wrong? Unfortunately, cyber-criminals are seeking to exploit exactly this sort of complacency with carefully-engineered phishing exploits and threats. So employees should: