Most of us have gotten used to working from home and with COVID-19 likely to create a shift in how many businesses continue some form of remote working, it looks like working from home is likely to be part of business for the foreseeable future.

While there are many benefits to working from home, for those of us not missing our commutes to being more flexible with our time, one concern for many businesses is cyber security. It can be a worrying thought, trying to keep your business and employees safe and secure online when your business might be running from hundreds of separate households.

Thankfully, there are some simple steps that both you and your employees can action to improve your security, even with staff working from home. We asked Cath Goulding, CISO of Nominet, who run the UK Domain, to share some of her expert tips in our recent article.

Today, we’re going to share just three of the seven tips Cath shared with us. You can read the full article on our website.

Keep alert for phishing scams

We all think we’d know a phishing attempt when it pops into our inboxes, but it’s easy for anyone to get caught out. And with many cyber criminals taking advantage of COVID-19 to create new scams, it’s vital your employees stay alert and are educated on how to avoid falling victim to these attempts.

A couple of things you can do include:

• Making it clear how you are contacting your staff and how customers might be contacting them, so out of place or suspicious emails can be identified quickly
• Reporting suspicious emails to the NCSC
• Encouraging your employees to stick to trusted websites and only opening emails from trusted sources

Conduct regular training

One of the most effective ways to improve your cyber security is through training. It’s important to make sure your employees understand what risks and vulnerabilities exist with home working and provide support to combat these. Try:

• Providing training sessions and support for any new tools or processes
• Try and make cyber training fun by adding some competitive spirit or involving rewards for employees
• Adopt an ‘if in doubt’ approach so staff aren’t afraid to report any incidents or check any concerns (make sure everyone is clear who to go to with these too)

Use password managers

Sharing and storing passwords can be more of a challenge when your staff are working from home, especially if you have shared access or have invested in new tools to adapt to remote working. Password managers are online vaults or tools where employees can:

• Store passwords (to prevent the same password being used across multiple platforms)
• Create new secure passwords
• Share passwords with other team members securely

Even with some employees returning to workplaces, investing in cyber security should be a key priority for your business. Implementing some simple steps to educate staff on what to look out for and how to respond to any breaches or threats can go a long way in improving the overall online security for your business. Don’t forget you can read all seven tips to keeping your staff secure when working from home on our website.

This article was brought to you in partnership with the UK Domain.

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