If you’ve decided that the traditional office space does nothing for your productivity throughout the working day, then you’ve probably already made the transition to remote working. As a person that works from home, you are granted more control over your schedule, you don’t have to contend with tedious workplace politics, and you don’t have your boss breathing down your neck from 9am to 5pm.
These are just some of the benefits attached to remote working. Unfortunately, however, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows when you decide to operate in this manner. As a remote worker, you have to contend with more cybersecurity issues than most.
Fortunately, there are things that you can do to remain safe while working from home. To find out how this can be achieved, be sure to read on.
Stay safe when working in public
One of the great things about remote working is that you can work from absolutely anywhere. Provided it has an Internet connection, you can work in your local coffee shop, you could sit in a bar, or you could set up a stall in a community center for the day. Should you ever decide to venture out of your home in order to perform your daily tasks, however, it’s essential that you resolve to remain safe. If you’re not careful, working in public could lead to devastating consequences.
Be sure to put the following best practices into practice when you decide to work in the public sphere:
Be aware of people sat in close proximity to you — for all you know, they could be looking to see what passwords you use
Exercise caution when connecting to public Wi-Fi — there could be hackers using the same network as you or a cybercriminal could have set up a fake hotspot for you to connect to, which is why you should consider investing in a SonicWall Online VPN (Virtual Private Network)
If possible, use your own laptop/tablet device instead of public computers — sensitive information can be accessed easily through shared devices
Keep your devices up-to-date
When you work in a traditional office space, the devices that you use will be updated automatically. When you work remotely, the task of ensuring that this is the case will fall to you. It’s essential that you take on this task, as not updating your laptop, computer or tablet could result in you not having the layer of protection that you need to fend off cybercrime.
Be aware of fraudulent emails
As you won’t have your colleagues sat next to you throughout the duration of each working day, you will more than likely turn to email in order to remain in contact with them. This increased use of email puts you more at risk of clicking on a fraudulent email. For this reason, it is essential that you know what spam and scam emails look like. Advice on what to look out for in this instance can be found in this Yahoo! article.
Put all of the above advice into practice and you’ll be sure to remain safe while working remotely.