Technology

Viruses You Can Catch Even While Social Distancing

We have all been adjusting to the changes the pandemic has brought. Whether it is extra handwashing in your daily routine or precaution to grab that door handle, there is still a virus you can catch even while sheltered in your home office: computer viruses.

Taking time to assess your cyber hygiene has become even more important in a time where many of us are working from home. Having multiple devices can become difficult to keep track of when it comes to what data is on each device, what is synched in the cloud, and what needs to be protected.

Our Cybersecurity Solutions Team has composed a guide of how to maintain your cyber hygiene and what to implement into your cybersecurity check ups.

Measurable and Relevant Security Awareness Program: 2020 has added a lot of additional techniques cybercriminals can leverage to try and infiltrate enterprises due to the global pandemic. They can send emails posing as government entities with critical information relating to the situation, requesting users to click links, respond with personal information, take certain actions, etc. It is very important to have a program in place that keeps users sharp to combat these attacks. The program needs to be relevant and current to what’s occurring in the world. The program also needs to be measurable and include ways to track areas of improvement.

Verify controls are still adequate: 2020 has impacted the entire world. It’s been a paradigm shift as offices have less traffic than before and users’ homes are now the new office. The traditional controls kept in a corporate setting may or may not protect users as well as they did in the office without forcing VPN. From gateway firewalls, to URL filtering, IPS/IDS, many of these controls traditionally reside on the border at corporate facilities. Now with end-users being home, in order to have the same protection they are left with either forcing VPN, or investing in new tools to protect the user wherever they go.

Automate: Wherever possible, automate repeatable tasks and security actions. Automation allows for quicker response times in a predictable way and opens up the team to work on more strategic initiatives. This is especially important with the paradigm shift in 2020 and additional attacks we are facing from cybercriminals to be faster to respond.

Maintain a strong security mindset: Comfort of home can often make it difficult for some to separate relaxation vs work. Now that more users are working from home, their mindset around security policies may not be the same as when they were in the office. To tie in with security awareness training, ensure users maintain a strong security posture at home. Any documents that get printed out need to be locked/shredded just as they would be in the office following the clean desk policy.

For more information on Richey May Technology Solutions’ elite cybersecurity trusted advisory team or how maintain your cyber hygiene while protecting sensitive content, contact us today.