Tips for staff working from home

Many professionals have been practising the work from the home trend for more than a decade now. But noticing the pandemic situation all over the world, it has put employees into practising work from home (WFH) for full time. Most of them are unfamiliar with this practice. Taking note of this, we believe that it will be really useful to share a few important tips to be kept in mind doing WFH and the right precautions to be practised in the meanwhile.

Physical security while WFH

• Make sure to switch off your devices while leaving home for any outer necessity. Even your cell phone, which you might be using to keep track of the emails.
• If you are surrounded by people at home or staying in a hostel or around kids, make sure to switch off your system, even while using the washroom. Don’t tempt them to look into your system.
• If you do not have a separate workstation at home, make sure to collect and store the devices away from everyone’s sight, while you are not working.

Access on system

• Your system must be secured with a password, make sure the password is strong enough. It keeps it safe in the situation if you lose your device.
• As you will be WFH, entering your software won’t be that easy, as the signup will be more crucial. If you are not using a single sign-up service, don’t write passwords on a paper, instead, you can use a password manager.
• Check and enable encryption on your work devices. This helps in securing the information on stolen or affected computers.
• If you are using a home network on your work device, make sure you keep it invisible to other connections on the network.

Separate work and personal devices

• Never use the same system to perform your personal tasks that you use for work. It will lead you towards confusion and might also leak information to a cybercriminal causing breach.
• Don’t use your personal mail for sharing work mails. It is very unprofessional and might cause issues once things are back to normal.
• If you are a parent to school going kids and they are observing online classes, make sure that you don’t lend your work devices to them. This might lead to a blunder and exposure of very private work information to unwanted sources.

 Secure connections

• Keep secure connections with the organization’s cloud infrastructure which you can access through a valid VPN encryption.
• Make sure to secure your Wi-Fi connections using a strong password and latest encryption, do not use WEP, use WPA2 or WPA3
• Secure and protect access to the router being used on your connection with a password and ensure it is unique.

Best Cybersecurity practices

• Be aware of the phishing emails. Many cybercriminals are trying to capitalize on the fear and anxiety caused due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They might pretend to be delivering the latest updates on coronavirus, the maps and even fake advice on health.
• There are higher chances of you receiving many fishing mails among your work emails. As WFH is being practised, major work communication is via mails. Do check the mails before opening. Do not click on files seeking immediate attention. Those are scams.
• Keep updated on the trending scams through social media and save yourself from becoming a victim.

Your initial days experiencing WFH might get tricky, uncomfortable and leave you unmotivated. But taking the precautions and keeping your work on point might help decrease the stress. Find a comfortable working area and follow a healthy work routine. You might end up enjoying WFH and come out becoming more productive. Just keep yourself safe from the pandemic and the cybercriminals as well.