Staying cyber safe while working from home

With many people now working from home, there are a new range of cyber security risks that companies and employees should be aware of.

Deakin University’s director of the Centre for Cybersecurity Research and Innovation Damien Manuel said hackers had changed their methods to target this growing demographic.

“People are being targeted by scammers as a way to impersonate someone else who is in the office as a way of sending them fishing links and things to click on.”

If people have the option, it is advised they use corporate devices, as these tend to have a better level of cyber security than home computers.

However, if you do have a device you receive from work, it is good practice not to share it and only use it yourself.

This is also because the potential consequences of a security breach are severe.

“It also opens up organisations to the threat that if an employee is breached at home, that, depending on how that access is controlled, could spread to other people that are also connecting to the corporate environment as well,” Mr Manuel said.

He advised people working on their own devices to ensure they have the latest anti-virus and anti-malware software installed.

But even with this there is still a need for caution from the user, as anti-virus and anti-malware software tend to only be 40-50 per cent effective.

With the increasing use of video conferencing, people also need to be wary of how to use the different programs safely.

Mr Manuel said this is particularly pertinent for people using Zoom.

“Zoom has become hugely popular for a couple of reasons: it is really intuitive and easy to use, and it’s cheap. It’s been designed that way from a user perspective rather than being designed that way from a cyber security perspective.”

Mr Manuel says this does not mean accessible programs such as Zoom should not be used, but that people should be wary when using them.

“If you’re using something like Zoom, make sure you are having conversations you would be happy to be heard by a neighbour or someone else.

“If it was mission critical information with highly sensitive data, you might want to look at other mechanisms to exchange that information.”

There are also steps people can take to make more user-friendly programs safer.

“You can do things like enable the security features such as passwords and the feature that plays a tone when someone has joined so you can have a look to see who’s on the line,” said Mr Manuel.

“You might have someone who is chairing the meeting, and someone else who’s connected who is looking at all the numbers that are dialed in to make sure they correspond with known employees.”