Preventing the spread of COVID-19 has many companies having members of their staff working remote, such as from home. Shifts in technology and delivery have made remote workers both doable and achievable with fewer barriers to overcome—at least in being able to access business data and resources. It’s also creating a shift in hacker focus and their targets. Why? Because most home networks are insecure, poorly maintained, and create an opportunity to get to the company’s gold: it’s data.

We support businesses and their workers—remote and otherwise, yet we also recognize the importance of maintaining security of those users. Here are some of our recommendations to help protect your remote workers and your company from spreading viruses that are network-related while you protect your workers from COVID-19.

  • Contact your legal department regarding their recommendations about requesting employees to use their personal equipment to access company resources
  • Require a security scan of any home computer for malware/spyware/adware prior to allowing it to connect to business resources through a VPN or other remote means
  • Require that any local Wi-Fi passwords be strong and that the most secure settings are used for Wi-Fi on their home network
  • Require that the remote worker’s computer be current w updates and have functioning anti-virus installed
  • Recommend (or require) that your remote workers not open personal emails when connected to remote resources—business email only
  • Promote awareness of social engineering techniques that use email, phone, chat, text, or voicemail to put a user off guard
  • Promote awareness that social engineering techniques used by bad actors will use COVID-19 and Coronavirus as fear vectors to get a response
  • Recommend that remote workers be very selective about which websites they use while working (hopefully they’re work related)
  • Recommend that remote workers get OpenDNS Home to help protect their network and computers
  • Verify that home routers, firewalls, and wireless access points, have current firmware and the proper security settings in place 

By keeping your remote workers secure, you keep your business data secure. There are no 100% fixes or protections in any of this, yet teamwork can mitigate most any threat. Social Engineering is still The Number One method used by bad actors and hackers that prey on users to get to data.

DanTech Services is here to help.

We can install our agents—and antivirus—on remote worker PC’s to provide support for your staff. During these times, we will provide this service at a vastly reduced rate that’s based on the level of service expected. Our monitoring agent plus AV with minimal support starts at $15 per agent per month.

Please call or text us at 907-885-0500 or send us Assessment Request using form on the right.