In an era where remote work is becoming more common than ever before, data security measures have become a concern. As the lines between personal and professional lives are easily blurred, safeguarding data becomes a heightened responsibility.
Whether you’re a remote worker, a business owner working from home, or an entrepreneur who seamlessly blends work and personal tasks, understanding the potential risks and implementing prevention measures is important.
Data Security Breaches: Understand the Consequences
Picture this: You’re working in your home office – handling company data, confidential client information, and financial records.
Suddenly, you discover that a cyberattack has breached your system.
The problem is that by the time you realize it, the damage is done.
The aftermath is a recovery effort beyond your capability – possibly resulting in financial fraud or loss, a tarnished reputation, and legal liabilities from client identity information being taken.
Financial Loss:
A data security breach can lead to financial loss due to stolen funds and ransom demands. While it’s often larger companies that are intentionally targeted for this, it can also happen to smaller companies that are happened upon by hackers who look for easy ways in. This goes beyond the phishing scam emails to those who are actively testing website and network security to find out if they can get in.
Even if funding isn’t the target, there are costs involved in recovering from the breach.
The financial impact doesn’t end when you’re back up and running with new prevention measures… customers may lose trust after hearing the news, leading to decreased revenue. And let’s not forget any missed revenue from delays in service/product delay caused by the downtime.
Reputation Damage:
Trust is fragile and more important than anything else when it comes to business. A data breach very quickly shatters it and can make it irreparable. The news of compromised data spreads quickly, easily tarnishing reputation and breaking client confidence.
Let’s take for example the 2012 OSAP Data Breach that sent hundreds of thousands of Canadians scrambling to protect their identity. The results were catastrophic. Victims had to pay out of pocket to monitor their credit as a precaution, which further fueled the feelings of mistrust – especially since many found their identities were used to open fraudulent credit cards and loans.
It created years of backlash, finally ending in a $17.5 million lawsuit settlement in 2018 that still didn’t address the emotional distress these consumers had as a result of the breach.
While this was the result of a lost hard drive, it’s a lesson to be learned – and one to not take lightly in both online and offline situations given remote work and “take work home” arrangements.
Legal Ramifications:
Depending on the industry and location, data breaches can result in steep legal penalties and lawsuits – further denting your finances and reputation.
In some cases, there’s a “legal fee” for simply breaking this trust with your clients; which is added onto any other costs involved in trying to rectify the situation.
When it comes to court, there are a lot of factors and details involved in settling on the amount of money that the company will need to pay.
For more specifics, you may be enlightened by researching what legal charges would apply to your industry.
Operational Disruption:
The aftermath of a breach requires a significant investment of time and resources to restore systems, investigate the breach, and implement security measures. This whole process will further disrupt – or perhaps bring to a complete standstill – your regular operations.
Consider for a moment if you use a CRM program that’s also your main source for inventory tracking, order processing, and invoicing. But this system suddenly becomes completely inaccessible to you.
How can you complete orders if you can’t access customer and order information, let alone create and send invoices?
Think about how you operate and consider what an emergency plan should look like if you suddenly lose control and the ability to carry on as normal.
Then take this one step further and ask how to prevent the situations that would cause it to happen.
Intellectual Property Theft:
For business owners and entrepreneurs, the theft of information and innovative ideas can have significant long-term repercussions. From stolen branding to copywriting, and business plans to other critical information, it can impact your competitive edge.
For remote workers, the threat of identity theft holds more dire consequences and even emotional distress. Cybercriminals capitalize on weak security practices – exploiting personal vulnerabilities to gain access to confidential information, emails, and online activities.
This can lead to speculation and mistrust of the employees’ home network security which may jeopardize their employment status. Policies and practices for safeguarding data on both devices and networks are recommended.
Why Tech Data Security Matters
As a business owner or entrepreneur, you may often find yourself wearing multiple hats that blur the space between home and business.
And as a remote worker – whether using company-issued devices or personal ones – there are equally as many questions for the reason of working in personal space.
Regardless of the role you’re in, you can help prevent potential data security threats with the following suggestions:
Prevent Cross-Contamination of Data:
Using a single device for both personal and work purposes increases the risk of data mingling, potentially exposing sensitive business information to personal vulnerabilities.
Business owners and entrepreneurs should consider purchasing new devices that are purely for business use.
While most companies provide devices to employees for work-from-home purposes, some might not – employees without company-provided technology should consider approaching the company with a proposal to purchase equipment.
Expanded Attack Surface:
Your home environment may not have the same level of security as an office, making it more susceptible to cyber threats. Starting with your internet provider (because they might offer free ones), you’ll want to look for any browser plugins and/or software that can add layers of security.
If you don’t have a password on your home network, it’s strongly recommended that you add one.
These prevention measures only take minutes to set up but can create a significant improvement.
Business and Personal Finances:
If you access both personal and business finances on the same device, a breach could have cascading consequences for both.
This is another reason why you should have separate devices – each for its own use.
If you aren’t already doing so, be sure to set up any 2-factor authentication options available on all websites and platforms you use.
Take Control of Your Data
Mitigating these risks requires a multifaceted approach:
Secure Home Network: Set up a secure home network, change passwords often, and enable strong encryption for Wi-Fi connections.
Secure Office Network: While it may be convenient, exposing technologies like Remote Desktop (RDP) on the internet without the need for a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is insecure and provides an easy attack surface for would-be hackers. Provide employees with a VPN connection and make as many internal services as possible only available for VPN and internal users; rather than making them available on the public internet.
BYOD Policy: “Bring your own device” (BYOD) should be discouraged or disallowed by company policy for both computers and mobile devices. For businesses choosing to allow this, employees should be asked to consent to monitoring and management by the employer and should comply with all IT policies – including joining devices to the company domain, installing remote monitoring and management software, etc.
Multi-Factor Authentication: Implement multi-factor authentication for all accounts to add an extra layer of security. For users that require their mobile device only for 2FA, consider providing an inexpensive alternative such as a UbiKey.
Regular Updates: Keep all devices and software up to date to patch vulnerabilities that can be exploited.
Employee Training: If you have a remote team, ensure they understand security protocols including recognizing phishing attempts.
Data Encryption: Use encryption tools like BitLocker to secure sensitive data, ensuring it remains unreadable even if stolen.
Remote Desktop Security: If you use remote desktop applications, ensure they are properly secured with strong passwords (and change this routinely).
Backup and Recovery: Regularly back up data to secure locations, enabling quick recovery in case of a breach.
Endpoint Security: Invest in strong endpoint security software to protect devices from malware and viruses.
The bottom line? Data security is not a luxury… It’s a necessity. Whether you’re a remote worker or a business owner, proactive security measures are your armor against potential threats.
Your data is invaluable—guard it as you would your business’s success.