USA,July 18,2024-Cybersecurity is among the critical concerns for businesses that have at least a partially dispersed workforce. In 2023, Armis, a cybersecurity software vendor, reported a 104% increase in attempted attacks in hybrid work environments.

IBM’s latest data breach report highlights a staggering average cost of over $4 million per breach. What makes the situation even more alarming is that over 90% of successful cyber attacks result from employees unknowingly providing sensitive information.

This is why raising cybersecurity awareness among remote workers is among the most important tasks for the company leadership.

This article outlines essential steps companies can take to safeguard their digital assets by providing targeted training for their employees.

Implement Monitoring Software

One of the main challenges in maintaining information security in a remote work environment is that many threats can easily go undetected.

This is why implementing powerful monitoring employee internet usage is a smart solution for the seamless maintenance of corporate cybersecurity.

Software of this type supervises how information travels through your system and detects your employees’ unusual behaviors or risky steps. Threats are immediately reported to the security team, enabling them to easily prevent potential attacks.

When implementing monitoring software in order to reinforce your data security, it’s important to talk to your employees. Explain:

• Why you are introducing this sort of software
• How frequent and covert these attacks are
• How your new software prevents the attacks

Provide Training on How to Avoid Phishing & Social Engineering

Social engineering and phishing are two closely related phenomena.

Social engineering includes any fraudulent activity by a cyber criminal aimed at an internet user.

Phishing is a type of social engineering attack that is attempted through a messaging platform. These attacks often involve a malicious link, attachment, or some other tempting or threatening material.

The point is to get the target to share their sensitive information or perform risky online behavior, often unknowingly. Criminals often impersonate a legitimate source. The type of data they might try to get are credit card information, passwords, or other sensitive personal information.

To help your employees stay safe, warn them not to click or open any messages from unknown sources. You should also instruct them to:

• Confirm the sender’s identity before opening any attachments or links
• Inform or consult the company’s security team in case they receive a suspicious email

Share Advice on Creating Strong Passwords

A strong password can be a solid defense against cyber attacks. Tech Ai Unfortunately, many people still tend to use weak passwords even for business accounts. The World Economic Forum reports that around 80% of data breaches happen because of weak passwords.

To help your remote workers reinforce this line of cyber defense, make sure you provide proper training. Advise them to:

• Avoid using easily guessable information (birthdays or names)
• Create complex passwords of at least 12 characters
• Include upper and lower case letters, as well as numbers and symbols
• Create different passwords for each account
• Use a password management tool (that you as an employer need to provide)

Stress the Importance of Two-Factor Authentication—2FA

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a widely recommended method of bolstering the security of all business accounts. Although it’s a bit tedious to go through two steps with every login, it adds a considerable layer of safety.

2FA often involves a one-time code sent to the account owner’s phone. Other methods for implementing this is through an authenticator app—a previously connected app generates a one-time code for logging in.

The codes are always different and the account owner can access them only through their phone. This is what makes it harder for hackers to attack the accounts.

Make Sure Your Employees’ Internet Connection Is Safe

The office-based network is the safest way to connect to the business cloud and all other worktools. Hybrid and remote workers don’t always have access to this network. This is why you need to provide them with proper training on the topic of internet connection safety.

Public Networks

Public Wi-Fi networks often have numerous users, and some of them may easily be hackers. Joining the same network as them makes your data vulnerable.

This is why you should be firm in your instructions that your employees should avoid this type of network for their work. A better solution, if they are outside and need to log in, is their mobile hotspot. Using this option eliminates the threat of exposing your data to a network loaded with unknown users.

Home Networks

Home networks are much safer than public Wi-Fi networks, but they are not perfect. Their safety depends on the routers, and they do not offer the same level of security as office-based servers.

Here is some advice to help your workers immediately improve the safety of their home network:

• Change the default router password. Substitute it with a complex, strong, and unique one. To access these settings, type “192.168.1.1” into your browser.
• Enable WPA3 encryption. To pick this encryption option, go to security settings on your wireless configuration page.
• Limit the access to the network to certain MAC addresses. Every device has a unique MAC address that can be found under the CommendPrompt after typing in “ipconfig/all”. Your employees can add their devices’ MAC addresses to their router’s settings and limit the network usage to these selected devices.

You can also consider providing your employees with a Virtual Private Network (VPN). This way, there will be a secure data pathway to your company’s network. The VPN would encrypt the data and further improve the security of your remote workers.

By adopting these measures, organizations can noticeably reduce their vulnerability to cyber threats and foster a secure remote work culture.

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