Working from home
As we try to ‘flatten the curve’ of the COVID-19 outbreak, many are working from home. Below are some security tips for those who are working from home:
- Follow the policies and guidelines set by your IT department.
- If a Virtual Private Network (VPN) has been set up by your organization, use it.
- For your home network, do the following:
- Make sure the password to your router/network is a strong, complex password.
- Use letters, numbers, and symbols for your password. If you are unsure about how strong your password is, use this tool to measure the strength of your password: https://www.my1login.com/resources/password-strength-test/
- Ensure your administrator password isn’t the default router password. If it is, change it.
- The router setting should be set to WPA2-AES. This enables network encryption. Do not use WEP
- Only allow those within your household to connect to your router/network.
- If you have ever given guests the password to your network, change the password.
- Know which computers/devices are connected to your network.
- If any of the computers or devices become infected with a virus, disconnect that computer/device from the network. Use anti-virus protection and check all other devices to see if they were infected by the virus. Remove computers and devices as needed and report the matter to your supervisor and/or IT department.
- Tell others in your household the following:
- Only access websites and download material from trusted sources. If they are not sure, then don’t.
- If they suspect that they may have downloaded a virus, they are to report this to you immediately so you can contain the virus to try to ensure other computers/devices are not infected and report to your supervisor and/or IT department.
- Make sure the password to your router/network is a strong, complex password.
- Establish administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. Below is a non-exhaustive list. Examples of safeguards are:
Administrative Safeguards:
-
-
- Follow the policies, procedures, and guidelines established by your organization for working from home.
- Communicate to others within your household they are not to access your computer, devices, documents, etc.
-
Physical Safeguards:
-
-
- Do not leave laptops, desktop computers on and unattended. Also do not leave documents or anything else containing sensitive information unattended.
- Securely store away laptops, documents, portable devices not in use.
- Take precautions so that no one else can see the contents of your screen, especially if it contains sensitive information such as personal information and personal health information.
- Do not allow others to use your work computer/laptop/device.
-
Technical Safeguards:
-
-
- Use strong passwords.
- Lock computer screen when leaving the computer unattended.
- Log off or shut down computers when not in use.
-