The coronavirus has disrupted lives as we know it—and as much as we’d hoped that it would only affect certain aspects of it, we’ve been mistaken. From our social life to our work life, all our interactions have suffered due to the unprecedented onset of this disease; and all we can manage to do is mitigate the effects as best as we can.

Organizations and businesses have resorted to working from home to ensure the safety of their employees. While having a borderless workforce that telecommutes from the comfort of their own homes is a plus for some companies, especially small business, there’s always a threat to the tons of sensitive data that remote employees are working with.

So before you set up your work desk in your house, take a look at a few cybersecurity challenges that you and other remote workers should look out for.

Accessing Sensitive Data through an Unsafe Wi-Fi Network

If your employers are connecting to their home wireless networks or accessing important email accounts through an unsecured public Wi-Fi, the chances are that malicious actors, like cybercriminals, could harvest confidential information.

To prevent this from happening, remote employees must use a safe VPN connection.

Using a Personal Device for Work

Now that employees are instructed to work from home, most of them are using their personal devices to communicate with clients, send emails, manage corporate accounts, and everything else that their job entails.

However, one misstep, like using software that isn’t up to date, can open up holes in your security and make the acquisition of sensitive company information all the more easy.

Insecure Passwords and Phishing Scams

Simple passwords are incredibly easy to hack, especially if a worker uses the same one for various platforms. This can make it easy for people with unauthorized access to hack into the network and acquire sensitive information.

Additionally, phishing attacks are frequent and are recognized as some of the top causes of data breaches—especially for remote workers. A seemingly legitimate link in a depictive email means that you’re just a click away from giving your device’s access to a malicious party.

While these issues may seem like work from home is impossible without risking the loss of sensitive information, that’s not the case at all. With the help of penetration testing services, you can assess the vulnerability of your IT system, identify shortcomings, and set up safety measures to mitigate cybersecurity threats. At Lean Security, we help you do it all!

Sign up for our network vulnerability assessment and benefit from our premier web security assessment technology to make remote working easy for yourself amid the coronavirus crisis.

Find out more about our services here.