In honor of October being Cybersecurity Month, we encourage you to carefully review the following insights to protect yourself and your business.
Current circumstances have caused businesses to restructure operations and transition remote. For many, this shift has presented new challenges and reshaped priorities. On the minds of many is the topic of cybersecurity and its importance.
Breaches can occur every day, and such threats can devastate an entire organization. All the logistics and adjusting to remote work are demanding enough. However, an organization’s success depends on cybersecurity awareness and establishing a set of best practices. Below are essential cybersecurity tips for remote teams.
How To Protect Your Infrastructure:
Avoid Public Networks
Employees may begin to feel isolated when working from home and need a change of scenery. An everyday go-to for remote workers is often a library or coffee shop. However, utilizing company devices and assessing your organization’s confidential data while connected to public wifi is an open-door to threats. Anyone can easily enter a public network and hack into the devices. Transactions can easily be intercepted across the bandwidth, leaving your business’s assets vulnerable.
Utilize Strong Passwords
Creating unique and robust passwords may seem like common knowledge; however, we cannot stress it enough. Employees frequently reuse passwords across multiple channels. This type of usage is concerning because once the credentials are compromised, the hacker can access numerous accounts.
Creating strong passwords containing uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols make it challenging to access accounts for malicious purposes. There are password managers that can help employees create good passwords.
Invest in Identity Access Management
No matter how many employees work for you, everyone needs to have individual credentials with a unique digital identity. Ensuring that the appropriate individuals have access to specific devices and data while remote can be challenging. However, identity access management IAM can mitigate the risk of unauthorized activity. IAM helps to ensure that employee credentials are protected and can recognize if they are compromised. This solution also helps keep employees from viewing confidential information that they don’t need to perform role-specific tasks.
Install Security Updates
With the recommended applications in use, you may receive multiple security update notifications weekly. These updates can pile up. Even with reminders, it is easy to forget the need to keep up on these critical changes. It is best to install these updates immediately. Putting it off can make your system substantially more susceptible to security threats. Keeping up to date can also help your system run faster with fewer bugs.
Be Cautious with Emails and Unsolicited Messages
Emails and SMS scams are common platforms that cybercriminals exploit. Hackers send emails and messages that contain attachments. Once people unknowingly download the files, they unleash viruses into your system. The prevalence of unsolicited messages is a wake up call to provide training and cybersecurity tips for remote teams.
The email scams may be hard to recognize because they often address you by name. And they may appear to come from a trusted site. However, it’s important to be hyper-aware of these signifiers:
- Avoid opening emails from addresses you don’t recognize.
- Do not open unexpected correspondence.
- You are one of the first lines of defense from protecting your business from breaches.
Consider Secure Socket Layer
If you have an online site for your business, evaluate the policies and tools you have to protect visitors for transactions about to take place on your site. A method to protect interactions with your site is by having a secure sockets layer in place. This technology helps to encrypt data and can be obtained online through a certificate.
Do Your Own Research Cybersecurity Tips For Remote teams
Every day there are new scams, viruses, and techniques that hackers are leveraging in an attempt to steal your data. That is why it is so vital to stay well informed about the latest threats. Cybersecurity awareness is one of the best weapons to protect your business. The more informed you are, the more prepared you will be to recognize potential hazards. Your research into cybersecurity tips for remote teams is an excellent strategy for protecting business.
Cybersecurity Tips For Remote Teams Is A Necessity
Cybersecurity should not be an afterthought. Keep security at the forefront of the daily ins and outs of running your business. All it takes is one breach to compromise your sensitive information. Especially now, remote environments present even more hurdles for upholding the security standards necessary for securing your business.
The time and effort you invest to train and teach cybersecurity tips for remote teams proves a worthwhile investment. It will help you protect all of your hard work, your brand, and the company you are building.
Related: Alexa Hack Showcases Vulnerabilities in Connected IoT Devices