Despite restrictions gradually beginning to ease in the UK, many businesses aim to continue the system of working from home – making life much easier for staff whilst reducing business costs of office renting. But, from an IT support companies’ perspective, there are many risks and cyber threats that remote working can cause. In todays blog, we thought we would take a look what some of those risks are.
Public Networks:
For those who are working remotely, you most likely have to access your works online servers in order to find the information you need to do your job. But did you know that working from home creates a higher security risk to the business you work for.
Most office networks are much more secure than those of our own homes. This is due to multiple security procedures being put in place to protect data. However, for most people, the Wi-Fi networks we use at home are less secure as they are not private networks.
When information is sent through public networks, it can be intercepted by hackers, putting the businesses data at risk of being compromised. This could potentially lead to sensitive data such as emails, credit card information and phone numbers to be stolen, leading to a variety of negative consequences.
Furthermore, if a network is compromised, there is a possibility that dangerous software can be installed in order to gather further data that may not be accessible on the surface layer, including legal documentation.
When working from home, assure you are taking all the safety precautions you can to protect you and your businesses data. The easiest way to do this, is to use a personal or private network at home – especially when sending sensitive information.
Lower Security:
Linking back to our previous point, the majority of office networks have security systems such as firewalls to block any potential breaches -whereas most home networks don’t have these – causing the network to be more volatile.
However, it is not just the networks than be the cause of lack of security. It can also be affected by the device you use. Similar to the networks, the computers that are used within the workplace will most likely be set up with the latest versions of Anti-virus software in order to provide the highest amount of protection possible. However, for the remote workers who have to use their own PC, Laptop or other device, you could find you and your work’s data being put at a higher risk.
With many businesses having both direct security (such as Anti-virus) as well as having an IT support team on hand, it allows for a very secure network – making it difficult for anything to be intercepted. But on our own devices this isn’t the case, for most people their personal devices security is much lower than the businesses with software potentially not even being fully up to date – putting the data heavily at risk from hackers and viruses.
Phishing and Scams:
We have talked about the security of your data however it’s not only a lack of software which can cause you and your business to be put at risk. The simplest cause of data breaches is human error – mostly caused by phishing and scams.
Hackers constantly create new techniques to attempt to catch out businesses to handing over their personal data – the most common recently being Covid-19 articles about medical supplies and masks. To the majority, most are easily identified, however these scams pack a larger punch to remote workers – reason being that individuals are caught out more easily, simply due to the fact that people working from home, work in a much more relaxed environment and have less pressure and guidance to double check things. Statistics have suggested that 90% of workers are unaware of phishing emails!
IT professionals struggled to deal with the aftermath of these scams due to the increase since the pandemic took place. However, their main piece of advice to those who receive them is to check the email is legitimate and check with your supervisors about how to handle it. Phishing scams are one of the easiest things to avoid yet catch out people the most.
It’s easy to get caught out by cyber threats, however by using Omicron, we can perform initial checks on your managed security services, your IT infrastructure including servers, PCs and networks, as well as penetration testing and setting up multi-authentication techniques to ensure passwords are secure. So, there is no need to worry when it comes to remote workers.
Phone: 01727 861553
