The Cybersecurity Risks of Merging Business & Pleasure

As we all live in the home working era, the chances of cyber risks have increased to the next level. Due to the coronavirus crisis, millions of people are working from home to perform their official responsibilities. This is where organizations or companies need to protect their remote employees’ online privacy.

By doing so, they can also secure their crucial business assets and other sensitive resources from hackers, identity thieves, scammers, and other notorious elements. Also, it is advised to take up a Cyber Security online course to protect your data from cyber-attacks.

This post will let you know about different cybersecurity risks that can emerge when people do not follow cyber hygiene practices while working remotely.

The cybersecurity risks of merging business and pleasure

When you work as an office-based employee, you have to follow certain cybersecurity practices. These practices include the use of password managers, firewalls, installation of antivirus software, data backup, etc. This way, employers can secure their crucial business data, including sensitive communications.

Besides, they also safeguard their employees’ privacy against numerous cyber threats like hacking, data theft, identity theft, phishing, etc. comprehensively.

On the contrary, when employees work from their homes using their home Wi-Fi networks, cybercriminals can harm their online privacy to a certain extent.

The story does not end here as we often use the same work devices like desktops, laptops, etc., to sign into our favorite streaming services. This is where the situation gets tricky because we tend to share our login credentials with our friends or loved ones as and when needed. As a result, they can also watch their favorite TV shows, movies, and other media content as per their preferences.

But, this whole activity of streaming media content and credentials sharing with our loved ones can cause serious security risks. This is because hackers can access our personal devices, hacking our passwords. Consequently, they can inject malware or viruses into our devices and misuse the official data to accomplish their unethical and illegal objectives.

This way, they can easily target our personal and professional lives both. Thus, we should always use our personal devices with caution when performing official work or streaming videos and other content to satisfy our cravings.

What should remote employees do?

As we all know, remote working has become an important facet of our daily lives. Therefore, we are bound to take some precautionary cybersecurity measures to improve our digital well-being significantly in 2021 and beyond.

Digital well-being aside, we can secure our official resources such as customers’ personal data, business communications, etc., following these cybersecurity measures in the right direction. These measures are:

Use of cybersecurity tools
Improve your cyber hygiene practices
Safeguard yourself from phishing attacks

Use of cybersecurity tools

Luckily, you can use numerous cybersecurity tools, including VPNs, email encryption software, antivirus, password managers, etc., on multiple personal devices like desktops, laptops, and mobile phones to combat different cyber threats proactively.

However, you must use a VPN to get complete online protection while working remotely. When it comes to protecting your online whereabouts against cyber threats like hacking, privacy invasion, phishing, etc., the role of a good free VPN comes in handy.

It allows you to hide your actual IP address through an alternative IP address and spoof your online locations instantly without any cost. If you are satisfied with its performance, you can subscribe to its paid plans after testing its privacy and security features thoroughly.

Improve your cyber hygiene practices

Cyber hygiene practices allow you to perform sensitive official tasks securely and anonymously from anywhere. For instance, you should use efficient password managers such as LastPass that secures your login credentials automatically online.

Moreover, you should connect to a reliable Wi-Fi network when you want to conduct official tasks securely while traveling. You can use your mobile data connection if you do not find a secure Wi-Fi connection at public places.

Safeguard yourself from phishing attacks

Similarly, you should avoid clicking suspicious links or attachments provided in emails sent by unknown people. Otherwise, you may become a victim of email phishing attacks if you click a link or attachment given in such emails.

Wrapping Things Up

Organizations, whether small or large, have to safeguard their corporate IT networks and other resources from insiders and outsiders. Apart from this, they must provide basic cybersecurity training to their remote and office-based employees.

In short, your employees should know how to use various cybersecurity tools on their official devices like Reviewsed’s strong password generator, firewalls, antivirus software, email encryption software, etc.

Likewise, they should avoid sharing their personal information on different social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. This way, they can protect their online whereabouts from the prying eyes of hackers, scammers, and other cyber terrorists.