Everyone is saying the future of convergence is here. However, the recent work from home culture brings a whole new dimension to cybersecurity.

Most of the top tech firms, including global tech companies with facilities in India, have asked their staff to work from home. Hackers eye workers from home in absence of secure networks.

The Coronavirus crisis introduces critical operational challenges to business continuity, placing high stress on organizations' management.

With several organisations implementing work from home for employees in the wake of growing COVID-19 threat, hackers have turned their eyes on breaking into companies' networks and systems in absence of robust, multi-layered firewall and security solutions within the boundaries of workers' homes.

It is important for businesses and employees to ensure safety and security of their data to avoid any disruptions.

Over 2 million employees are now working from home -- mainly in the Indian IT sector -- but how many of them have installed best security practices at home to ensure the security of confidential organisational data is the biggest worry…..

The fact is , while enterprises are moving forward with accelerated adoption of digital and build resiliency, IT vendors and service providers need to be more customer-service–driven and help their customers to prepare for their digital journey.

Key Highlights :

# Companies need to make sure employees use pre-approved laptops and smartphones to access corporate materials, including their emails, tools and documents.

# These devices should have business-grade security solutions installed on them and be controlled by the company IT department

# Employees need to secure their home router making it their first line of defence while also looking out for phishing mails and sites and ensure their personal devices are well-protected.

# The workplace collaboration and communication platform, the first and foremost step is to use a secure workplace collaboration platform that enables seamless communication across teams.

# The next step is to build awareness among employees about the risk and repercussions of a security breach, for this the top leadership has to educate themselves first about security practices

# Please ensure there is encryption. When it comes to software, end-to-end encryption and multi-factor authentication are both must-have features.

# employees should also be on the lookout for phishing emails related to the coronavirus including spear phishing emails.

# Install next generation cybersecurity solutions as these are designed with remote workforces in mind and allow the extension of firewall-based policies.

# Employees using cloud-delivered applications and services must only use those approved by their employer and accessed via the corporate network.

Working with remote employees demands that businesses pay acute attention to the technology and security they use.

The suggestions like, Re-visiting disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity plans offers an opportunity to reduce your exposure to risk while lowering costs.

There are various technology solutions are ready available, It doesn’t matter if employees are working at head office or at a remote location; they have the same advantages when it comes to application speed and performance.

As a result, CIOs and CISOs face a double challenge on the cyber risk front – apart from the new risks that the mass transfer of employees working remotely brings, capturing the management mindshare for further investments in security becomes harder than ever.
 

Employees working from personal devices at home are vulnerable to malware and phishing attempts. So, it should go without saying that immediate action - and resources – are required to level up the cyber protections to meet the new reality.

Unfortunately, in many cases, it's not. During this lockdown, There is one brand become the house hold name, that is ZOOM. Now the question is how Zoom became the Household name, where there are other hundreds of best brands are available in the Industry. It’s free and easy to use, which has helped it become successful.

Lastly, I would say, we have to keep in mind, Empowering employees digitally is about increasing productivity of the their own organisation.