Tech Tip: Hotspots Need to Be Safe Spots
By • July 6, 2021 0 614
In today’s work environment, the ability to connect remotely to your home office at any time of day is essential. Do you connect to the office network or VPN (virtual private network) to get work done in the evenings, on the weekends or when on the road? Of course, for many the answer is yes.
Do all of your employees connect safely when they’re working remotely? Not necessarily.
One of the most frequently forgotten aspects of network security is to make sure that personal devices used in employee homes and remote settings conform to the security standards in your office.
Make sure your road warriors and remote workers have up-to-date antivirus software on the computers from which they are connecting and that strong firewalls are in use whenever possible. Just know that it’s generally safe to connect into work from public hotspots as long as your secure office VPN is in use. The VPN secures the connection between the office and the remote computer.
Be careful about products out there. Remote login software such as GoToMyPC and others may not use the same type of security as your office VPN and therefore may not be safe for connections from public hotspots. Training employees on best practices in network security is always essential as well.
Alan Edwards, CISM, is chief information officer at Computerware, Inc., in Vienna, Virginia.
