WFH, are you aware of the risks?

Lots of businesses have switched to WFH arrangements, in the short term you do what needs to be done to continue operating, longer term consideration on how to work and secure your data is essential to protecting your business.

Mobile and remote working offers great business benefits and flexibility for your staff but exposes new risks in making sure that your users, their equipment and company data are safe. This is especially prevalent if you users are using their own PC, laptop or mobile device to work on company data.

It can be common for users to store company data on their device and this can be both a security and GDPR risk. As your users are working outside the corporate network, typically over the internet, we need to consider how to reduce risk. Some considerations to think about :

Basic security knowledge

Are you confident that your users are trained and aware of phishing, spam and vishing attacks and what to look out for?

Strong passwords

Do your users have unique, strong passwords set on their home devices and mobile equipment?

Anti-Virus

Have they got anti-virus installed and is it up to date and effective? Is it licenced for business use?

Updates

Is the device up to date with all software and hardware updates to ensure security issues have been resolved?

Data

Are the users storing potentially company specific data or data which falls under GDPR regulations on their personal devices? Who else might have access to this data? Have they the ability to copy this to other devices, such as USB and Dropbox, without your knowledge ?

Remote Access

How are your users going to connect to the work network and how is this secured?

Mitigation

There are several options and potential resolutions to the questions above. Please see our separate article on how to work from home securely and also our article on remote access solutions for long term remote working.