Entering the new normal: how to stay secure during prolonged remote working

By Greg Higham, Chief Information Officer at Malwarebytes

When lockdown measures were introduced, all over the world people found themselves in unfamiliar waters – working remotely. Thankfully, the internet era and progress in technology made it simple for many of us to carry out our regular duties from the safety of our homes. So simple in fact, that many organisations are looking to continue remote and flexible working even once the pandemic has subsided.

Working from home is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, a 2018 study found more than 70 percent of global employees work remotely at least once per week. But working from home on such a scale had never been undertaken before, and its success had been unprecedented. Looking to the future and a whopping third of employees want to continue working from home. Aa a result, businesses must evolve to more permanent working from home structure and improve their remote security practices.

Even before the pandemic, businesses were a growing target for cybercriminals; in 2019 global business threats rose 13 percent. When working from home, businesses are even more vulnerable because threats are harder to track over personal home networks. With half a million small businesses in the UK under financial distress due to the pandemic, falling victim to a cybersecurity attack could cripple a company. To prepare for the new normal, here are some tips for working from home – not just for IT teams who need to secure their entire remote workforce – but also for individuals to ensure their own safety over home networks.

Guarding against unauthorised system access

In March alone, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) took down 2,000+ coronavirus scams. Threat actors have been callously targeting our pandemic fears – creating more than 3,600 new malicious domains between March 14th and 18th which contained the phrase ‘coronavirus’. That’s why it is imperative businesses and individuals alike think about ways to guard against unauthorised access.

For one, access to your computer’s desktop should at least be password protected. And, it must be a strong password – ‘12345’ just won’t cut it. If the system is stolen or lost, this will keep anyone from easily accessing company information. Business leaders should also consider setting up a single sign-on service and in addition, employees should use a password manager – this is much more secure than a list of passwords in the back of your notebook.

A few extra pointers: Encryption also helps protect information on stolen or compromised computers –  ask your IT department whether you have it, and if they think it’s necessary; if you’re connecting your work computer to your home network, make sure it’s not visible to other computers; get hold of access to your organisation’s cloud infrastructure and ensure you can tunnel in through a VPN with encryption; and lastly, secure your home Wi-Fi with a strong password too, in case VPN isn’t an option or if it fails unexpectedly.

Recovering rapidly

If you are targeted by a cybercriminal during this time and they are successful, make sure you don’t treat remote devices any differently than you would the ones that reside inside your firewall. With whole companies working remotely, it’s critical to act by quickly isolating and recovering compromised endpoints before the attack spreads to other users.

If you are hit, you need to determine exactly what information was compromised so you can plan next steps. Figure out what went wrong and why – for example was it a phishing scam or similar? – then you need to stop it from spreading. The points of attack should be immediately isolated to minimise the damage to your organisation.

SMBs should have a backup plan in place so they won’t lose critical data. Data can be safely stored to the cloud and accessed anywhere, should machines be frozen out in an attack. In addition, purchasing a high-value endpoint protection solution that blocks sophisticated attacks can help carry some of the load in place of a highly trained IT staff.

Physical security and other best practices

The next tip is so-obvious-it’s-not-obvious: make sure your work devices are physically safe to avoid offering unauthorised views of confidential information. If you need to leave your home, lock or turn off your work devices; if you live with other people, lock your computer even when you step away for just a minute; and, if you can’t carve out a separate work space in your home, collect your devices at the end of the day and store them out of sight – this will stop them being opened or stolen and will also help separating your work life from your home life – which is as important as anything in the current situation.

Another thing: routine is your friend. Practice a scheduled daily scan for verifiable security. For high value individuals, such as executives, or departments like finance who hold critical information, scan these systems two or more times a day. It’s best to use an efficient cloud-based solution – this will bolster security, monitoring and remediation efforts while minimising risk

Finally, a security-first mindset should be projected across the whole company. Employers should distribute a cybersecurity policy that spells out how to identify phishing emails, tech support scams, and other social engineering tactics that threat actors use to bypass otherwise strong security measures. When it comes to phishing scams for example, employees should be informed that incorrect spelling and grammar, and anything that asks for card details or money are a red flag.

Ultimately, working from home looks like it’s here to stay and therefore remote security is crucial. With some companies like Google not returning to the office until mid- 2021 and businesses generally embracing a more flexible working pattern, employee’s individual privacy is at risk, as is breaching company security. Putting up your best defences against unauthorised system access, having a well-rehearsed plan for if things go wrong, physical security and carrying out frequent security scans are a must. These best-practices coupled with educating employees will create an environment where workers feel safe and knowledgeable about the risks and are as protected as they can be.