The Remote Work Revolution: Setting Up a Secure Home Office

Love it or hate it, remote work is here to stay, but only if your employees’ home offices are as secure as their office workstations.

As a small business owner, you might be highly ambivalent about remote work. In the pro column, you can list “eliminating the time, expense, discomfort, exhaustion, and pollution associated with commuting,” along with “allowing employees greater work-life balance,” and “improving overall staff morale.” On the con side, remote work is more challenging to supervise and assess, there’s less synergy between employees who don’t work in physical proximity to each other, and it’s more difficult to create a company culture when workers don’t come into the office regularly. We’re often told that “remote work creates happier, more productive workers,” but as the old disclaimer goes, “your mileage may vary.” Many bosses, even those tech visionaries who got the ball rolling, had been trying to rein in remote work before the COVID shutdowns forced an expansion of the experiment. Today, bosses of all stripes concede that remote work is here to stay, and their greatest concern is making the practice as secure as possible.

How secure is your remote office?

Working from home is nothing new. In medieval times, all craftsmen combined workshops with living quarters. They featured street-facing shops with apartments behind and above. It was the First Industrial Revolution, introducing coal-fired mass production, that got workers out of their homes and into the factories, where they stayed through the Second (gas-powered) Revolution, and the Third (electrically driven) Revolution. Now, with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, our digital age, we’ve come full-circle, and skilled laborers are going back home. Everything old is new again!

But if workers want to remain at home, they must cooperate with their employers to ensure their home office is every bit as secure as their office workstation. This means:

• Selecting secure equipment — Home office security starts with the right router, which gives you a reliable internet connection with built-in security features. Importantly, the router features a firewall to identify and prevent cyber-attacks on your network. Your router should support a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which enables you to share information over a private connection securely. You might also consider plugging your computer in with an ethernet cable, which supports lightning fast downloads of large, multimedia files.
• Using security protocols — The company must mandate best practices which should include multifactor authentication to gain network access; strong, unique, and frequently updated passwords for all accounts; and data encryption to protect sensitive information. Remote workers must also report security incidents immediately to mitigate consequences to the company.
• Frequently update software — Robust antivirus software is a must for protecting devices and the company network. But to be effective, these programs must constantly evolve to stay ahead of the next threat.
• Segregate office equipment — Home office equipment should only be used for business purposes, and the only persons using them should be company employees. Unauthorized users can make crucial errors that open the equipment and network to cyber-attack.
• Secure the physical space — To ensure no unauthorized person uses your equipment, lock the space. This can also deter burglars whose electronics heist could also lead to the loss of valuable company data.
• Employ secure data storage protocols — Data is not secure until it’s backed up redundantly and stored remotely. Work-from-home employees must schedule frequent backups of data.
• Take security training seriously — Employers can provide state of the art hardware and software designed to defeat security threats, but employee error can still open the door to invasive, devastating attacks. Remote workers must understand that they are the sentinels guarding the palace. If they fall asleep, the kingdom can be lost.

For small business owners allowing remote work, security is the primary concern. But oversight is another crucial matter. Fortunately, there are a number of business software programs that allow managers to track workflow and monitor performance. An IT professional can recommend solutions for your particular industry.

If you want to ensure that your remote workers have the equipment, software, and training to maintain a secure home office, KMF Technologies can help. Our IT pros provide trustworthy advice on all aspects of home office set-up and operation. And we make house calls. To learn more, call us today.