Before March 2020, many businesses had very little experience with remote work. But as lockdowns spread across the world, it caused a switch to remote working with any employee that could do their job from a computer. As the world settled into the new normal, it raised the question about the importance of remote working cybersecurity. It became crucial for companies to begin putting in place different protocols to protect sensitive information from being hacked and emphasize the significance of protecting their clients, while also trying to push their businesses to succeed online in a short period of time. Cybersecurity can not be overstated. It is one of the most difficult things when it comes to adapting to this ever-changing world.
Our team has put together three best practices that we think can help protect you and your clients from cyberattacks.
Two Factor Authentication
Two Factor Authentication has become increasingly popular among many websites, from your Gmail to your banking app, trust us. Passwords alone provide weak protection because they can be phished and guessed, and once stolen, can be tried against a range of accounts in the hope to secure a hit. 2FA strengthens authentication because it adds another factor such as something the user has (one-time passcode or security key) or something they are (a fingerprint). This is a key consideration for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer organizations.
VPN
Remote working is growing rapidly among many companies. The modern workforce is no longer bound to a single location and has the ability to be able to work from virtually anywhere in the world. At SEO & Grow, we have the beauty of this and it has allowed us to develop a healthier work/life balance but as we have been practicing it for years we can’t highlight enough the importance of a VPN for ourselves and our client’s sensitive information. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is secure communication between two online locations. In this case, it can be home and work. Using a VPN implies that no one from the outside can see what you are doing. We recommend investing in a VPN as it helps your organization encrypt data. The benefit of this is it protects you and any sensitive information from hackers, especially when using public wifi. We use Nord VPN, but there are tons of affordable options out there.
Password Manager
It can be extremely hard to manage all your passwords which is why sometimes we can get lazy and keep reusing the same one for several accounts. We use Dashlane which is a password manager. To put it as simply as possible, a password manager is a storage system for all of your passwords for your various accounts. Some can be cloud-based, some are built into your web browser and some are locally based. For us, using Dashlane has allowed us to store all our login credentials and they’ve then filled automatically for each site. This allows us to only remember ONE strong ‘master’ password to login into the manager itself. So no more trying to remember passwords and constantly resetting when you forget – this gives you the chance to make a strongly encrypted password for each of your user accounts. It is important to note that these password manager accounts are built for security and often have multiple factor authentication on top of a strong password, but it is essential that you don’t pick just any company, we recommend that you do your research and pick the one that has been properly vetted or assessed. This is why we love using Dashlane.
We hope these best practices can help protect you and your clients from cyberattacks.
