Working from home: the cybersecurity perspective

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, many businesses have made it a requirement for their employees to work from home. This means thousands of employees are accessing sensitive business applications and data from consumer-grade devices and less-than-secure home networks. As a result, cyber security concerns have risen to the forefront of many business owners’ minds.

“In the last week alone, we’ve seen phishing emails go from 25,000 a day to 125,000 – a 500 per cent increase – which means the risk is real,” says Andrew Jackson, Intercity’s CEO. “Whilst firewalls included within domestic broadband routers are considered sufficient for personal use and occasional homeworking, they’re not necessarily capable of withstanding prolonged periods of remote working from a large proportion of the workforce, which is why we’re seeing more businesses and their employees become the targets of malicious hackers. Just because employees are now home based doesn’t mean that security and privacy regulations such as GDPR are null and void and therefore, working closely with a trusted IT security partner is vital to help mitigate against any potential risks.”

Working remotely inherently means working away from an organisation’s ‘centre’ – where security and encryption can be closely monitored. Companies need to be looking beyond anti-virus and malware software to keep their data safe. One solution is a Mobile Device Management platform. This is a type of security software that extends data governance outwards from your ‘centre’ to protect employees’ mobile devices and laptops.

You should also be taking precautionary measures, like informing your team about the dangers of not following protocol when receiving suspected phishing emails. They mustn’t click any links in suspicious emails and should forward them on to IT personnel immediately for investigation.

Andrew Jackson says he’s seen companies starting to put these measures in place already, with a growing number of Intercity’s customers enquiring about device, network, and cloud security products like VPNs in recent weeks. “We’re working with customers on low-cost and short-term solutions to help them through these uncertain times, deploying Intercity’s end-to-end security platform, Touch Secure, to ensure employees enjoy the same levels of protection from home as they do from the office.”

To discover more about how our Touch Technology can protect your business’s sensitive data while your team works remotely, check out our free guide.