5 Tips to Securely Work from Home
With the rapid spread of Covid-19 throughout the world, many institutions and organizations have used the work from home strategy in order to continue its operations. Normandale as an educational institution is not an exception to this. Faculty and staff member have been issued computers to take home. Others are using personal computers to work. This equipment will enable you perform regular working tasks while at home.
Normandale ITS wants to ensure that you are fully protected and secured while working from home. These quick five tips are meant to help you work from home securely.
1. Social Engineering
Hackers have concluded over the years that YOU are the weakest to attack, not your computer. If they want your password or data, they will attempt to trick you to get it. Be aware of fake calls and emails.
Normandale ITS will never ask for your password. Watch out for Phishing emails- do not click on links in emails from untrusted places. Verify the url and address of the sender. Check the spelling of the sender’s name, ex: Ester is not the same as Esther.
- Someone creating a tremendous sense of urgency, often through fear, intimidation, a crisis, or an important deadline.
- Pressure to bypass or ignore security policies or precedures, or an offer too good to be true (no, you did not win the lottery!)
- A message from a friend or co-worker in which the signature, tone of voice, or wording does not sound like them.
YOU are the Best Defense against Social Engineering.
2. Home Wifi/Network
Almost every home has a Wi-Fi connection provided by your Internet service provider that is control by a router. These access points or router send out wireless signals to all the devices in your home. So securing your Wi-Fi means securing all your devices connected to it.
- Change the default administrator password: the administrator account is what allows you to configure the settings for your wireless network. An attacker can easily discover the default password that the manufacturer has provided.
- Allow only people that you trust: do this by enabling strong security so that only people you trust can connect to your wireless network. Strong security will require a password for anyone to connect to your wireless network. it will encrypt their activity once they are connected.
- Make passwords strong: The passwords people use to connect to your wireless network must be strong and different from the administrator password. Remember, you only need to enter the password once for each of your devices as they store and remember the password.
Your internet service Provide can set up all these settings for free. Call them for help.
3. Strong Password
Try to create a password when a website asks you to do so. Create a strong password because the longer the password, the stronger it is. A password of 11 characters take 4 months to crack. You can create a strong password by using a passphrase. Ex: “bee honey bourbon.”
Do not set one password for all your devices and account. In that case if one account is hacked, all of your other accounts or devices would be safe. Think about a password manager to store all your passwords. Enable 2 step verification.
4. Update Your Devices
Are you running the latest version of your programs, software and apps? Hackers are always looking for systems that are vulnerable.
Whenever you update your devices and apps, it is harder for hackers to get in because the companies that created the software has already issued the update to protects the system or program. Make sure you have antivirus installed.
Normandale provided devices are updated on a regular basis. If for some reason, the computer stops “talking” to our servers, however, updates may not get installed. If you have any concerns about your computer, please let us know.
5. Kids, Family & Guests
Children are curios and they love to try new things online. They might mistakenly delete some files or download a virus into your system. Make sure that family, guests and kids do not have access to your work devices. There should be a different computer for family use.