Due to the pandemic, businesses were forced to close down. Some businesses were given the choice to close or to move their operations to the home. Those who can — companies who operated largely on the Web — managed to move their operations to remote workers signing in from home.
As sides from bringing their operations at home, a lot of businesses enabled online transactions through their website or social channels. This revealed an alarming security risk, especially for WordPress built websites. Over 74% of all infected websites use WordPress as their CMS.
Remote work has been on the rise even before the pandemic. Research from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy and Research stated that 42% of workers in the U.S. are now working from home. That also meant that those working in cybersecurity penetration testing or other IT-related fields are also doing their testing from home. This also means that sensitive information is being shared from office servers to computers using home networks.
This makes it easy for hackers and cybercriminals to look for holes in the network where they could steal information. It shows the importance of cybersecurity for remote workers. Here’s how important they are, and what protection they impart.
Working from Home — Protection for Sensitive Information
A hot topic for most people is the development of stronger cybersecurity. In 2021, it’s an important part of the transformation of work. What happened was unprecedented and unforeseen. People took their work home, and suddenly, sensitive information was accessed from it from an unsecured computer.
Once work is distributed from the office to the home, hackers are free to track it and even see what they can do with that information. A simple firewall on a home computer is relatively easy to hack, while a firewall from a work computer requires a bit more work.
VPNs and other security measures can help a company protect its sensitive information, but a cybersecurity professional can do much more.
Cybercriminals — Ransomware or Something Worse
While some workers were able to bring home their work laptops, there are many who are using their own units. Some companies operate on the basis of keeping their ‘secrets’ — details and information of their employees and transactions — intact. Imagine the scale of losing information because of an unprotected unit.
Ransomware has also evolved, no thanks to the people behind them. They can target the vulnerabilities of companies like hospitals. There was such an incident in 2020 when ransomware was linked to the death of a German hospital patient.
As such, work in the cybersecurity sector is more important than ever. As these criminals evolve, so do the people creating safeguards against this ransomware.
Stronger Passwords and Security
Perhaps it’s because of the sheer number of people bringing their work home, but cybercriminals have been busy during the pandemic, too. During the Q3 of 2020, a total of 50% increase in ransomware attacks have been logged. That amount is expected to double by 2021 as more and more companies reemerge with remote work as their main method of completing tasks.
This can be blamed partially on ineffective or incomplete password management systems. Companies were forced to quickly shift to remote work without investing in stronger security as well. Moving on to the new normal, companies need to address this to protect their sensitive information from cybercriminals.
One quick win is to make sure you strengthen your password across all your online accounts.
Deployment of Enterprise-Grade Security
The lack of cybersecurity isn’t seen only in small businesses. What’s worse is that even mid-to-large-sized businesses have displayed a complete lack of strong network security. These systems are easy pickings for companies who are looking to get into their systems. IT admins are also swamped by trying to strengthen the network security of remote workers as much as they can.
There are ways to strengthen this security. One can be to have workers log into VPNs that are controlled from the office server. There are other ways like having employees use software-based VPN, but the former is best.
Virtual Desktop Management
There are other businesses that have chosen to do another way of work; this is to install virtual desktops on their employee’s home computers. There are a lot of benefits here, like cost-saving benefits, IT management, and additional performance.
Virtual desktops help users work as if they’re using the desktops they have in the office. Information is also shared through a secure private data center usually located in the office. If any hackers are trying to get the information being passed through this process, they’ll have a harder time doing it.
Cybersecurity is a big issue, whether you’re a remote worker or just a regular citizen surfing the Web. It’s important to keep your files and your system secure from hackers. If you can, consider following any of these tips so that you know how to keep people out of your system and from snooping on them.
