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Working Remotely? Here Are 4 Often-Overlooked Steps That Secure Your Data

By Kenya Parrish-Dixon
July 01, 2020

Most businesses either shut down temporarily or sent all their employees home to telework by mid-March of this year. By the time you read this, Americans will have been working from home for more than three months. This has never happened before in this country during the age of technology. As millions of Americans logged on to their home networks and personal desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones in an attempt to keep their companies afloat, cybersecurity issues rose to the forefront of the many issues that companies had to manage. Many corporations, and law firms in particular, have already suffered breaches. Many are unaware that a breach has even occurred. American industry was not and is still not adequately prepared for this transition. The responsibility to keep corporate and client data safe is shared by the company and the employee.

The private sector could learn a great deal from the federal government about securely managing teleworking employees. The federal government has an extensive telework program run by each agency. The rigor of each program largely depends on how data is classified within that agency. Even with different protocols across agencies, the government overall knows how to securely manage thousands of teleworking employees. If we follow its lead, there are many steps for securing data that can be implemented quickly and inexpensively. Here are four categories of cyber strategies that can be implemented for large-scale teleworking with very little effort.

The Three A's: Assets, Antivirus and Additional Protocols

Private sector businesses should learn to follow the federal government's process for telework regarding assets and devices. Federal employees that telework are typically issued a federal asset or device, like a laptop or tablet instead of a desktop. The laptop is given an agency-specific image that includes antivirus software and an approved access portal like Citrix.

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