With a large shift to remote work in the recent year, businesses have scattered their data to many servers concerning the number of people they employ. In doing so, they had made their data more vulnerable to cyberattacks and hackers than would have been possible when employees were working in a single space with a uniform network.
With so many networks accessing your business’s data from different locations, how do you protect against cyber threats? You implement a cybersecurity plan. With this specifically formulated plan, you can protect your data and your business no matter how your employees access the data and where they gain access.
To help you protect your business data with remote work from home employees, we’ve outlined the logistics of formulating a cybersecurity plan below. Read on for more information about the various preventative measures you can take to protect your data.
Creating a Cyber Security Plan
Creating a cybersecurity plan for your remote work from home employees will create extra protection for your business data since you won’t have the control over the networks they use that you usually have in an office setting. The plan can range in its simplicity and can include the following measures.
Secure All Home Networks
Since your employees work remotely, they must work from a secure home network when accessing anything related to the business, especially considering sensitive data. A safe home network refers specifically to networks within the house your employee works, which means your employee cannot go to a public place to work.
Public spaces with free wifi also operate unsecured networks that are vulnerable to hacks and other cybercrime. Besides steering clear from public places, your employees should encrypt their home network and give it a complex password to prevent data vulnerability.
Anti-Virus Protection
Before your employees begin working, you need your employees to install anti-virus software on their preferred desktop or laptop device. Anti-virus protection, especially when combined with the secured network implementation, sets up an extra wall of protection to safeguard all of your business data that they access during work.
Company Issued Devices
Instead of sending out emails with lists of expectations and requirements of working from home to all of your business’s employees, you can cut a few steps out and issue each employee their company-issued device.
In doing so, you can choose the specific device your employees use for work. A device that meets your safety standards and comes pre-installed with adequate, thoroughly-vetted anti-virus software alongside any other data loss prevention technology you want to incorporate.
Implement Restrictions
Another way to prevent data loss and cybercrime attacks is to implement restrictions. These restrictions can include prohibiting employees from accessing sensitive data unless they come directly into the office, with permission, where existing cyber safety measures monitor, control, and protect the access.
Require Two-Factor Authentication
Since a single space no longer encompasses your employee’s devices, it’s hard to gauge where and how they use them. This freedom of working from home means that employees can transport their devices to work on-the-go or throughout different rooms in their house. It also means that the devices are more likely to get lost.
To prevent data access from theft, you can require two-factor authentication for the devices your employees use to work. Two-factor authentication can take many forms, such as an external, physical USB key or the more advanced DNA-back authentication from fingerprints or visual verification.
No matter the method, requiring two-factor authentication will make it more difficult for thieves to access your business’s data if an employee misplaces or loses their device.
Install a Data Loss Prevention Plan
Installing a data loss prevention plan is probably the most wide-reaching, extensive part of creating a cybersecurity plan. It’s a comprehensive plan in itself that utilizes data loss prevention technology to safeguard your business’s data. Creating a data loss prevention plan includes implementing policies and technology in combination to provide the optimal security for your business’s sensitive data.
Data Loss Prevention Policy
Formulating a data loss prevention policy allows you to dictate what data is sensitive and what information you consider public or otherwise safe to access from home. You can also outline in the policy what actions you would consider a breach of policy, such as sending specific emails, copying data, or sending information to uncleared sources.
However you create your data loss prevention plan, your rules and regulations will prohibit and block employees from taking such actions and will set clear expectations for them when working from home. It serves as insurance for your business and gives you control over how and what your employees can access.
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Technology
DLP technology is a type of collection software that harbors your sensitive data within the confines of the secure network so that hackers or other cyberattacks cannot export any information. The technology closely monitors your data to identify what of it is sensitive.
After it’s identified the sensitive data, DLP monitors potential cyberattack entry points within your network along with other vulnerabilities then takes control of them to prevent the attacks from happening. The DLP’s monitoring service extends to Cloud service data and other uploads and downloads that occur.
DLP regularly formulates reports on its efforts and findings, so you can get an extensive view of how the technology is working, what it’s working against, and how your company benefits from its protection.
Final Thoughts
Protecting your business data is vital to maintaining the integrity of your company. Make sure you keep your information safe while your employees work from home with the above steps. Whether you implement all the ideas or just a data loss prevention plan, you’ll be taking crucial steps to protect your data.