Working or Playing from Home?
The Coronavirus when we look back at the year 2020; will be the most talked-about topic of the 2000s. It looks like it is the most serious pandemic we have faced in 100 years.
As of the 27th March 2020, the number for the World in regards to the Corona Virus is - 465,915 confirmed cases, and 21,031 deaths – numbers gained from the World Health Organisation Website (Map page)
To help reduce the number of people catching the disease. Billions of people from around the world are now being told to work from home by millions of employers.
Countries such as Holland have seen the biggest growth in employee Vpn usage, with the number of users of Vpn rising by 240% Other countries such as Austria and Canada, have seen their Vpn usage grow by 208% and 202% respectively.
We have found that other countries around the world are experiencing the same thing.
From Belgium to the USA, from Denmark to the UK, and from Spain to France. All are now experiencing new high spikes in VPN usage.
Even though these extraordinary circumstances are now in place. We still need to take care of the security of our data online.
Features such as encryption and secure connections have now become very important indeed.
Where I am based (which is the UK), we are being asked to follow the advice given to us via the - National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
The rules and guidance from working from home - https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/home-working.
More and, more companies need VPN services to allow employees to log into private corporate systems to do their duties. IT staff are responding by putting up more VPN servers to keep up with the surging traffic.
IT staff have been making sure that these VPN servers are also correct and suitable to be patched up to keep up with the surge as well.
They have been implementing the enabling Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) solutions, to protect VPN accounts from unauthorized access.
Even if the attacker has valid credentials for the victim's account.
Hackers might take advantage of all this. They could launch DDoS attacks on these same VPN services and exhaust their resources; thus crashing the VPN server/s and limiting their availability.
This will also apply to “Cloud-like access” to the Internet as well for Companies and their employees.
Here below are a series of questions and considerations that companies may need to think about when setting up their employees to work from Home.
- How many concurrent users can log in at the same time?
- Will the VPN corporate policy be relaxed to accommodate the maximum of employees?
- Who gets priority access if the appliance or service cannot support everyone?
- How much bandwidth a typical user use?
- Do you split access time between users (i.e. each gets 2 hours)?
- A number of VPN licenses or MFA tokens available?
- Are users allowed to use their personal computers?
- If personal computers are allowed: (1) What is their security posture (patches, AV updates, etc.)? (2) Can they be trusted? (3) What files or shares are employees allowed to access?
However, if you are the end-user and working from Home. There are ways where you can do as much as you can to protect yourself.
1. Lock your screen when you’re taking a break
If you’re living with family or roommates, locking your screen when you leave it and is unattended; prevents anyone from not just looking at what’s on your screen, but also snooping around your files.
2. Use encrypted messaging and storage systems
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a method of encrypting data that only allows the sender and receiver of the message to decrypt and read messages passed between them.
We recommend the program called – SIGNAL
Please click on the link below:
Resources that could help you from working or playing from home
3. Avoid clicking on links from unexpected emails
Whilst moving away from the office to your home, you may see more emails about how your company, your bank, and the apps that you’re using are updating or changing in some way to make working from home, work.
Be very, very careful when receiving these emails. It could be an attempt to phish for your company credentials and passwords or prompt you to install malware or ransomware onto your laptop.
Unless you’re 100% sure about the content of the email you received. Confirm with your company (in a forwarded email to the appropriate department) whether the email is legitimate.
4. Avoid using Wi-Fi networks you don’t control
If you’re able to work in a cafe, coffee shop, or co-working space, you will be using public Wi-Fi with an admin that isn’t you.
If you’re venturing outside to work, use a VPN to prevent Wi-Fi administrators from looking at your browsing activity and hackers from performing man-in-the-middle attacks.
Your company might already be using a corporate VPN. If it needs you to access information for internal use. Investing in a VPN that is fast, secure, and easy to use will secure your connection when using public WiFi.
5. Use ethernet for a faster internet connection
Whilst working from home, your connection to the internet could take a big hit.
A VPN can give you an unthrottled experience, but the best solution for poor connectivity is to switch to Ethernet and connect with a cable.
If your laptop is not equipped with an ethernet port, there are ethernet dongles you can purchase that will let you connect.
And if ethernet isn’t possible, get as close to your router as physically possible.
We hope this article helps in some way in regards to Working from Home or using your Internet connection to relax and enjoy from home.
As mentioned above we have a page that we believe might be able to help you.
Please click on this Link above (just the link below) to find out more.
Resources that could help you from working or playing from home
Well, that's all folks for me now anyway.
Please CONTACT US here. If you want to discuss anything mentioned here in this article.
DJ Mistri and the Electric Soul Show © www.electricsoulshow.com
