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W
hen on the job at a corporate
office, a healthcare organisation,
or an academic institution or
government agency, or even when you are
working from a local coffee shop, restaurant,
or home office, your company’s online safety
and security is a responsibility shared by all.
However, as mobile computing – especially
using personal devices – becomes more
common, the potential for network
compromise is increasing.
Think about this. Around the world, 20%
of employees now do some or all their
work from home. Employees increasingly
demand flexible and seamless enterprise
access, making mobility a top global priority
to attract talent and provide competitive
advantages. While this trend gives
employees increased access to the
network without tying them to a cubicle,
it also introduces new security risks to
the organisation.
As mobility and Digital Transformation
demands have made business networks
more accessible than ever, cyberattacks
are also becoming more frequent and
sophisticated, taking advantage of the
expanded attack surface. As a result,
employees can unwittingly cause severe
damage to a business due to a lack of
cybersecurity awareness. A compromised
device or an unreliable remote connection
can leave your network vulnerable.
To minimise risk at work and home, especially
as connectivity and digital resources become
more intertwined, organisations need to
promote security hygiene best practices that
will minimise risk, data leakage and non-
compliance while still allowing for operational
flexibility and efficiency.
Building a culture of strong
cyber hygiene
As we use our own devices to remotely connect
to the corporate network, we must all play a
role in helping to keep the network secure.
Here are a few strategies that everyone can
practice to promote top-notch cyber hygiene:
Use secure access points and create
a work network
When remotely connecting to your corporate
network, cyber hygiene best practices
recommend using a secure access point. One
way to minimise the risks of connecting to
your work network over public Wi-Fi is to use
www.intelligentcio.com
Doros Hadjizenonos, Regional Sales Director
at Fortinet
a virtual private network (VPN). VPNs allow
you to extend your private network across the
public Wi-Fi using an encrypted virtual point-to-
point connection which enables and maintains
secure access to corporate resources. However,
it is still critical to remember that if either
end of that VPN is compromised, like the
unadvertised WiFi access point at your local
coffee shop, then VPN cannot prevent things
like man-in-the-middle attacks.
It is also imperative that you ensure the
integrity of any access point you connect
to. While public Wi-Fi connections are
often harmless, it only takes one malicious
connection for a cybercriminal to intercept
all of your browsing data as you move across
sites and accounts.
Another best practice is to create a secure
network for business transactions in
your home office. Most businesses have
two separate networks – one that only
employees can access and one for guests.
This same protocol is easy to replicate at
home. Most home routers allow for the
creation of multiple networks, such as a
home and a guest connection. Adding
a password protected network for work
connections means that your corporate
resources will never share the same
connection as your gaming systems, home
laptops or your children’s smart devices.
By keeping your home devices separated
from the network on which you access
sensitive work data, compromised devices
or applications cannot be used as a point of
vulnerability to attack the corporate network.
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