Remote work is a huge boost for small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) since it gives you greater flexibility and access to new talent. You also reduce your operating costs. But, remote work also introduces a new risk: cyber attacks on your remote workers, who’re more vulnerable than on-site employees.
Luckily, with a good cyber-defence plan for your remote team, you can reap the benefits of remote work with minimal successful cyber attacks.
Keep reading to learn how to build impregnable digital defences for your remote team.
1. Secure Your Home Networks
You can’t control your remote workers’ internet provider, but you can adopt these best practices to maximise their home network security.
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Use Wi-Fi Encryption
Your Wi-Fi should have the latest security protocols, like WPA 3. This will prevent a hacker from accessing your network and intercepting your data.
Without updated security protocols, you’ll have unpatched vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit to steal your data.
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Change your default router settings
Most routers come with a default username and password. These are usually generic and easy to guess, making them vulnerable.
Cybercriminals are even known to specifically search for routers with default usernames and passwords.
So, change your settings to a unique and hard-to-guess username and password to minimise unauthorised access.
2. Use Better Passwords
Most remote workers juggle between multiple accounts and services to do their jobs. For example, your accountant probably shifts between their email and QuickBooks quite often.
That means they have multiple passwords to manage, which can make things complicated.
At best, manually managing different passwords means short delays while team members remember passwords to important accounts.
At worst, it means passwords being lost or compromised.
Fix this by getting a professional password manager. It’ll store, manage, and autofill passwords for your team.
Not only will it eliminate the hassle of getting passwords, but it will also maximise your password security and limit unauthorised access.
You should also encourage your team to use long, difficult, and unique passwords for each of their accounts.
This ensures that even if one account is compromised, the attacker can’t access the others with the same credentials.
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Set up Multi-factor authentication (MFA) For Your Accounts.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is when you’re required to provide additional verification for inputting your password.This could be via a text message with a confidential code or a biometric fingerprint scan.
Adopting MFA gives your accounts an extra layer of security. Suppose a hacker gains access to your password. They’ll still need to clear the second verification to access your accounts.
They are unlikely to also access your phone to receive a text message code.
So, using MFA drastically decreases the chances of a successful hack.
Ideally, you want all team members to have unique passwords for each of their accounts backed by MFA.
This combination reduces the chances of a successful breach the most since a potential hacker would need multiple passwords and access to your devices to steal your data.
You can also use your MFA credentials to recover lost accounts or reset passwords.
This is also a much safer approach than resetting passwords without additional
authentication.
3. Protect your Devices From Malicious Attacks
Aside from ensuring your devices are physically stored in safe places, your team should also adopt these practices:
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Update Your Antivirus/Anti-Malware software
All of your professional devices must have updated anti-malware. These software detect and eliminate threats before they cause damage to your systems.
Antivirus and anti-malware software receive regular updates in response to new threats and vulnerabilities detected. So, updating your anti-malware is crucial to eliminating preventable attacks.
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Regularly update your software
Old and outdated software can contain vulnerabilities that the new versions have patched. Not updating your software means giving hackers the chance to exploit these vulnerabilities.
You should also regularly update your software to protect yourself against new vulnerabilities. The latest patches and updates protect you from emerging threats.
You should specifically focus on updating your:
- Operating system
- Professional applications
- Security software
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Use Encrypted Storage
Use encrypted storage to protect sensitive data. The advantage of encryption is that it prevents access to your data even if your devices are stolen.
Without being able to decrypt the file, hackers can’t access your data.
Suppose a remote worker misplaces a USB with sensitive customer data. As long as the USB’s data is encrypted, no one can access the data stored on your drive.
Without encryption, someone with malicious intent could steal the USB and access your sensitive data. They could then use it maliciously, such as blackmailing you or releasing your data over the Internet.
You can encrypt your data using either built-in options or acquiring a third-party solution.
4. Secure your communication channels
You need to secure your teams’ communication channels to prevent leaks. You can do so by adopting these practices:
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Install a Virtual Private Network (VPNs)
A VPN encrypts your internet traffic, making it inaccessible to attackers. So, using a VPN ensures minimal unauthorised access to your data over the internet.
Your team should especially use VPNs when accessing company data over public or unsecured networks.
Public networks are a frequent target of cyber attacks since they’re known to not be secure.
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Use Encrypted Messaging and Email
Employ encrypted messaging tools to protect the content of your messages, like emails, from unauthorised access. So ensure your email and messaging services offer encryption to maximise your privacy and security.
Without encryption, a hacker could potentially access sensitive emails shared among your team.
5. Teach safe browsing practices
Your web browser should be updated and configured to maximise security by:
Enabling features like pop-up blockers.
- Using sacred HTTPS connections when possible
- Disabling third-party cookies
- Doing so maximises your online security and limits exposure to browser-based attacks.
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Avoiding Phishing Attacks
Phishing attacks are among the most common threats to remote workers. These consist of unsolicited emails or messages that ask for sensitive information, like bank account details while pretending to be someone else.
For instance, your CFO could receive a fake email pretending to be from the company’s CEO requesting a certain amount of money be deposited into a bank account.
Your team should be trained to verify the sender’s identity before responding to such emails or accessing the links or attachments included in them.
Doing this minimises the chances of a successful phishing attack against your company.
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Use Ad Blockers
Ad blockers can prevent malicious ads that contain malware or phishing links from appearing on your browser. That makes ad blockers an additional layer of online security for you.
6. Educate and train your workforce
You need to regularly train your workforce about the latest security practices and inform them of the newest cyber threats.
That’s only the first step, though.
You also have to train them.
You can do this by simulating cyber attacks to test their preparedness.
For example, you can send test phishing emails to your team members’ inboxes to judge how they react.
If a large percentage of your team falls victim to these emails, it means they haven’t been adequately educated.
Also, understand that cybersecurity education is a continuous practice since new cyber threats and practices consistently emerge over time.
So the worst mistake you can make is to teach them once and let that be it. Instead, you need to provide ongoing cybersecurity education and training.
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Incident response plan
Even the best-defended company still gets hit with a successful attack on occasion. Your company will sometimes suffer cyber attacks, too. And you need to be ready for them.
The best way is to prepare an incident response plan in advance.
Your plan should inform all employees what to do when a breach happens.
Your plan should include:
- Reporting procedures
- Mitigation steps
- Contact information for your IT support or cybersecurity team
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Ensure personal responsibility and vigilance
No matter how well you train your team, behaving responsibly is in their hands. You can help them achieve this by teaching them the following:
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Personal device hygiene
Your employees should practise good digital hygiene on their personal and professional devices. This includes:
- Regularly backing up important data
- Ensuring their devices and software have secured configurations
- Separating personal and professional devices, accounts, and activities.
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Awareness of social engineering
Social engineering attacks exploit your teams’ emotions to access your systems and data.
These attacks include attackers manipulating your team into supplying confidential information under the guise of friendship, curiosity, and other seemingly innocent intentions.
The best way to prepare your team is to educate them about social engineering attacks and ensure they’re trained never to divulge sensitive company information without authorisation.
You Don’t Have To Do It Alone!
Training an entire remote workforce to work securely and productively isn’t easy. And you likely have other important business commitments, too. Yet, you absolutely need to improve your cybersecurity to avoid potential threats. So what do you do?
You could get some help! A managed IT service provider can educate and train your workforce on your behalf without distracting you from other important work. Click here to get a free consultation with PowerbITs today.
