Working remotely from home is great in many ways, it is: convenient, boring, stressful, and relaxing. However, working from home comes with a number of security risks, such as theft and phishing attacks.
That is, because many employees use their personal devices for work, it often falls to them to protect themselves from cybercrime. In this article, we cover home security, environmental security, and digital security, with tips on how you can protect yourself while working from home.
You can now work safely at home
When you work from home, you need to consider home security, environmental security, and digital security. Fortunately, with a few simple steps, you can be much safer while working on your laptop. But, above all, today we want to talk to you about home security.
Even though you’re at home, break-ins can still happen, especially if you’re cooped up in a home office. While most break-ins happen when the house is unoccupied, here are some ways to protect yourself from home break-ins so you can focus on work.
- Home security systems: Of course, we don’t want a security system going off every time you go downstairs to get something from the fridge, or come out of your office seclusion to go to the bathroom, but some systems allow arming some sensors and not others. For example, if you won’t be leaving your house soon, you can place entry sensors on downstairs windows and doors; that way, you’ll get an alert if someone comes in or out.
- Cameras: We recommend that you install security cameras, both exterior and interior, in areas that you cannot see while you work. The best cameras for homes only alert you when they detect people so you don’t get inundated with notifications all day. That is, it will give you warnings whenever and wherever necessary.
- Doorbells – When working from home, it can be hard to avoid distractions like package deliveries. But packages aren’t just distracting; They are constantly stolen. In fact, we found in our package theft research that around 4 out of 10 people have had packages stolen. With a video doorbell that has person or package detection, you can be alerted whenever someone is at your door, with or without a package. You can then speak to the delivery man via two-way audio and give him further instructions, or tell him he’s coming down.
- Smart locks – Smart locks work well with video doorbells as you can unlock them.
- Smart lights: Do you have to go out for a while? Smart lights can make it seem like you’re home when you’re not, whether it’s in away mode or on schedules.
The environmental safety of your home
Now that you’ve protected yourself against break-ins, let’s focus on environmental threats like fire and carbon monoxide. You can choose the following:
- Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors – You should have smoke and carbon monoxide detectors on all levels of your home, particularly on your home office level. Also, don’t turn off your smoke alarm if it won’t stop, as you could miss out on valuable alerts.
- Fire extinguishers: Your fire extinguisher should be in good working order and easily accessible from your home office. Make sure you know how to use your fire extinguisher in case of a fire.
- Other fire safety tips: There are tons of fire safety best practices to follow in general, like not smoking in the home, using flameless candles, and replacing cords that have frayed or frayed wires. Read more about the best fire safety tips you need to work from home safely.
At Segurinter we want you to be protected at the highest level, so also take into account the protection you need on the internet.
- Keep family members off work devices. Even if your work laptop has the highest browsing speeds, don’t let anyone else use it, as they could click on phishing emails or go to malicious websites, compromising the device’s security.
- Cover your webcam. Although it may sound paranoid, many people cover their webcams with a piece of tape or an actual webcam cover. Webcams are not immune to cyber threats .
- Use a VPN . VPNs provide the highest data privacy, even on home networks. Once you set up a VPN, it will encrypt all your web activity through a tunnel before it reaches your internet service provider’s server.
- Use strong passwords. In that sense, password security is a must. Each of your work-related online accounts, including your home Wi-Fi network , should have unique, long, and complicated passwords.
- Activate authentication . Another advantage of using password managers is that you can add advanced authentication, preventing random people from accessing your accounts, even if they cracked your passwords.
- Avoid phishing attacks. Never click on emails, messages, texts or attachments that it doesn’t recognize. These can be phishing attacks aimed at stealing your login credentials by masquerading as legitimate websites.
An advantage of working from home is that we are in control of the office, your time and your day. Of course, with power comes responsibility, so you must
