This March marked the one-year anniversary of many small and large companies switching to working from home, which is colloquially known as home office. By now, everyone has developed their own routine, but there are still many who do not pay enough attention to IT security rules.
Below we have collected five things that you should pay special attention to when working from home:
1. Mute and hide camera image
Instead of in-person meetings, most meetings in the past year have taken place via conference software (Teams, Zoom, Webex), but those who have not used these have probably heard or seen something through their camera that they did not necessarily want to share with the other participants. That is why it is advisable to mute the sound and hide the camera image immediately upon entering any meeting (where you do not have to actively participate). This not only avoids possible inconveniences, but also improves the quality of the conference, as less bandwidth will be required to follow it.
2. File sharing location
Not all documents can fit in an email, so it is advisable to share them with colleagues in the cloud. There are many free and paid solutions for storing large files and large amounts of them (OneDrive, DropBox, Google Drive). When using these services, it is worth paying attention to the fact that only the documents that you want to share are available in the shared folders.
3. File protection
When sharing folders, it is also important that they do not contain publicly sensitive information. Folders or documents should always be password protected or only accessible to the owners of certain email addresses. For example, it is not good to share a folder with everyone that contains offers, payroll documents, and many other documents containing sensitive information.
4. Passwords
Speaking of passwords, it's worth mentioning them as well. Since you have to use multiple online services in your work, you need multiple passwords, which you need to choose and manage correctly. Don't use the same password in multiple places, don't use personal data or information in it, and try to include numbers, lowercase and uppercase letters. It's also a good idea to change your passwords periodically.
5. Phishers
With so many people working remotely right now, many people and companies are going through major changes. Therefore, it is important to pay special attention to various phishers who are taking advantage of the situation and trying to obtain information about companies in various ways. If someone asks you for information, always check whether the email you receive comes from a legitimate address , and remember the eternal truth: no company will ever ask for your password or credit card number via email.