As digitalisation and cloud computing become more ubiquitous the need for a physical office becomes less and less of a convern.

Working remotely does have some benefits for both employers and employees but Indi Siriniwasa, vice president for Trend Micro in Sub-Saharan Africa, says that firms should be educating employees about cybersecurity at home.

“The biggest threats to a business network can come from someone’s home network, which is more vulnerable,” says Siriniwasa.

An infected home network can easily transfer the infection to a business network and, while this is something to be aware of before before allowing employees to work remotely full time, it’s also important while employees are still coming into the office.

“We live in an age where we can bring our own devices to work, where we can work from home or anywhere for that matter. However, this poses a real risk to the business if security has in any way been compromised in these areas outside the office,” says the Trend Micro VP.

Employees should be educated about security best practices such as securing the home router. In addition, employees should be taught to use strong passwords. We’d even go so far as to suggest using a password manager such as LastPass or Kaspersky Password Manager (which recently got some new features) so that employees use unique, strong passwords but don’t have to actually remember them all.

“It may sound like common sense, but it’s something we sometimes don’t consider: make sure your home network is as secure as you can possibly get it. This is especially important in an age where we bring our work home with us, or we work remotely. Security is paramount when it comes to a home network,” concludes Siriniwasa.

[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]