COVID-19: Best Practices & Cyber Security for Remote Workers

Cyber Attacks are the major threats to all the businesses throughout the world from decades. From the last five years, these attacks are increasing day by day, also become more sophisticated & advance with the passage of time. From the last few months, a big threat is revolving around the earth named CORONA Virus (COVID-19). The Hackers have been adopted this approach to attack all the esteemed organization by threating them from COVID-19. Scared employees become victimized to that cyber-attack & their organization pays to that attack by compromising on their valuable confidential information.

With the passage of time, COVID-19 become a fear world-wide that causes deaths and transforming from one human being to another by any means. Due to this situation, all the businesses throughout the world are on stake & seemed to be stop. All the organizations decided to do work from their homes for business continuity, till the time, COVID-19 become under control. Now the big question arises here, how do office work securely from home in the time of very sophisticated or zero-day attacks which are increasing day by day?

Remote work presents a unique challenge for information security because remote work environments don't usually have the same safeguards as in the office. When an employee is at the office, they are working behind layers of preventive security controls. While not perfect, it is harder to make a security mistake while at the office. However, when computers leave the premises and people work remotely, new risks arise for the company and additional policies are essential.

Here are some of the best practices you can implement when you and your employees do work from home in situations like COVID-19 or else:

1.     Use Secure Internet/Wi-Fi Connection:

Avoid using public Wi-Fi connections, always use personal hotspots or some way to encrypt your web connection. Because public wi-fi connection are open and easily accessible to everyone including Hackers. They sniff incoming/outgoing data packets to steal information including sensitive information like user credentials, organizations confidential information, etc.

For many remote access applications, you should use a VPN. VPNs provide a flexible connection to connect to different services (web pages, email, a SQL server, etc.) and can protect your traffic. Keep in mind that not all VPNs are worth the money.

you can also set up encrypted remote connections into a remote desktop or other individual server. Many of these connection types (RDP, HTTPS, SSH) include encryption as part of their service direction and do not require an additional VPN or other encryption service to secure in-transit data.

2.     Access Important Data:

The safest place to access organizations confidential data is within the premises of organization. Whole organizational data is not necessary all the time to work from outside the office. So, in the situations when you are needed to work from home, take only the devices and information that you really need.

3.     User Awareness:

When we talk about cyber security, Employees Awareness is a big challenge to deal with. Teach all employees to not leak out organization’s confidential information to others by any means i.e. spam, phishing email senders. Do conduct sessions for user awareness about Spam Emails, Phishing Emails, Fraud Emails, Malicious Attachments, etc.

4.     Use Secure Passwords:

‘123456’, ‘qwerty’, ‘password’, etc. are the easiest passwords, provides zero protection; these are just an invitation to every hacker. Only long and complex passwords which are not easy to guess (such as combination of name, birthday, etc.) are more secure – especially if you use a different one for each account. If you’re not a memory artist, you can use a password safe with a master password, which automatically generates secure passwords. Where possible, you should switch to two-factor authentication, which is already mandatory for online banking. You often hear the recommendation that you should change passwords regularly.

5.     Use Private Channel:

To access information stored in organizational premises, use private channels or tunnels like VPN which creates an encrypted, private & secured tunnel at both ends in which data in-transit securely. For more protection, organization should implement protection with UTM Firewall at the entry level through internet.

6.     Use Updated Software:

The outdated software may have vulnerabilities which can be exploitable by the hackers. If these vulnerabilities exploited, hacker do infect the PC or monitors all the activities happening on that machine. With the passage of time, hacker can steal the confidential information of organization or spread malware for the infection. To not suffer the business operations, keep all software updated. Also, recommended to enable ‘auto-update’ for safety.

7.     Use Effective Antivirus:

In case any malware spreads, to detect & clean that before infecting the machine. A strong Antivirus solution is mandatory. To protect any esteemed business, implement network-based Antivirus solution for effective performance & management in less time. This solution protects the endpoint wherever it is using.

8.     Email Protection:

All PC users don’t have expertise in Information Security. For better protection through spam, phishing, fraud, malicious attachment emails; email protection solution is necessary to stop such emails before reaching to users for better safety and smoothly running business operations.

9.     Encrypt Sensitive Data:

Information stored in stolen device is open and easily readable to unauthorized person. If you don’t want, data remains easily readable to unauthorized persons, encryption can play a very important role to fulfill this need. Encryption can implement on files, emails, folders, etc.

10. Log Off Devices:

Even, if you’re taking a short break, lock the screen of your PC and mobile devices. So that, unauthorized persons wouldn’t be able to access during your absence. And, of course, you also need to safe the devices against unauthorized use or even theft when they’re in your home.

11. Must have Backup:

Sometimes it does happen: You have carelessly clicked on a file attachment with ransomware and now the PC is encrypted, and hackers are demanding a ransom for unlocking it. No problem! Reset the PC to factory settings and restore all data with the backup.