Reduce The Risk Of Being Hacked
2020 is going to be remembered as the year of the Covid pandemic. That pandemic has forced many people to work at home. We all know that hackers have hit networks in organizations in almost every phase of business, both public and private. Remote working threats have affected employees who work from home as well.
People who work in an office environment use equipment that is safely tucked behind the office network’s firewall and protected by an IT or MIS Department that is busy ensuring that the office network is as impervious as possible to cyber attacks.
Many workers are now at home. They no longer have the safety of the office’s firewall or the IT people that were protecting them at hand. This has greatly increased the number of opportunities for hackers. It also means that people who work from home need to increase their cyber awareness. Remote working threats are very real. They’re also increasing.
Since people have started working at home, it’s harder for them to make good choices regarding security. If you’re home alone, you can’t just ask your neighbor in the next cubicle if they just got a weird link or saw something strange on their device.
Emails that are called phishing attacks are designed to scare a person into thinking that they must click on a link that is designed to give a hacker usernames and passwords. Home devices are no longer secured by the sophisticated devices that were in the office. A hacker only has to deal with the home Internet connection. That makes things much easier for them because it’s not well protected. The devices that are at home are far less secure. It might be the same device that everyone uses to do online shopping and stream shows. This greatly increases remote working threats.
Personal email accounts on the devices at home are not as well protected.
How can an organization protect itself from attacks that come through at-home devices?
They need to train the staff. An educated employee is a good defense. In addition, training increases the cyber awareness of the employee, which helps them.
Companies should have offline backups.
Companies need to require multiple levels of authentication. Merely requiring a password isn’t enough.
Companies should apply security patches often. This reduces vulnerability.
People and companies will always have hackers. Don’t make it easier for them to attack your organization.