With a national state of emergency declared in the United States and with states declaring quarantines around confirmed clusters of infections, people are finding themselves forced to work from home. This shift to telecommuting, however temporary, increases the threat exposure of any company with employees working from home. Businesses spend millions building, maintaining, and policing their internal networks. Their servers, routers, and anti-intrusions measures are the best they can afford. None of that can be said for the home of your average employee, after all they’re not worried about an intrusion attempt. Unprotected software and hardware represent a treasure trove for bad actors, and we should expect a rise in phishing and malware attacks in the coming weeks as corporate data finds itself moving through unusual channels. The solution to this is the use of a VPN, which would provide a safe way to transmit data. Some companies may have invested into a corporate level VPN and provided their employees with the training to do so. We recommend a VPN for everyday use, and especially when working with sensitive or confidential data. Check out our guides on how to work from home securely!
Max is a Data Privacy Coordinator at a major global law firm and a science fiction author residing in the Philadelphia area. He has been writing for https://www.askcybersecurity.com since early 2017.
