We've put together some general advice that will help keep your information safe and prevent potential issues that could jeopardize your ability to work from home. Please feel free to share this information with anyone who you think might benefit from it.
Be Diligent!
Social Engineering and Phishing attacks are on the rise and are the leading methods that cyber attackers use to gain unauthorized access and steal information.
Awareness is the most effective way to prevent these attacks and we ask that you please take a few minutes to watch these excellent short videos from the SANS Institute. (SANS is the most trusted and by far the largest source for information & cybersecurity training, certification, and research in the world.)
Social Engineering Awareness Video: https://cc.sans.org/api/previews/launch/4b52ce99-da2b-4a0f-9e56-1f1ed3dc5c68
Phishing Awareness Video: https://cc.sans.org/api/previews/launch/89005129-b9f5-42af-a66b-06246bfa973a
Use Unique Passwords, Especially for Email
There are differing schools of thought about the length, complexity, and how often you should change passwords but the general consensus is that each account or service that you use online should have a unique password. That way, if your password is compromised for one account, your information on the other accounts will remain safe. Your email password is one of the most important as your email account is often used to reset the password for your other accounts.
Remotely Accessing Your Work Computer
For those of you who are remote controlling your work computer from home, we recommend that you close the remote connection as soon as you are done working or if you will be away from the computer for an extended period of time.
Using Company-Issued Computers At Home
Unless otherwise authorized, your company-issued computer should only be used for work purposes. Please resist the temptation to use your work computer for personal matters or let family members use it. In fact, we recommend that you shut down your work computer if you are not actively using it at home.
No Company Files on Personal Computers
Opening company files on personal computers can put company data at risk of loss and should be avoided unless you have been specifically authorized to do so.
Backup Your Personal Data
The reality that we see with home computers is that almost none of them have working backups.
A good backup of your data is cheap insurance against losses from malware, hard drive failure, accidental deletion, theft, and more.
We currently recommend Carbonite Safe Automatic Cloud Backup as it is easy to set up, sends email notifications, and has excellent support. Of course, you can choose any backup provider that you wish, just make sure that the backup system has the ability to alert you if a backup fails. We've seen far too many people set up a backup program only to find out later that it stopped working and their data can't be recovered.
