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Homeworking Temporary Contractors – How to manage the cyber risk

July 13, 2022

Managing the cyber risk for home workers

As organisations grow or implement a new restructure there often becomes a demand for short-midterm contractors who can provide additional support through this time. Temporary contractors bring the benefit of additional skill sets and experience from outside your organisation, to support your permanent employees through busy periods or specialist projects. With the increase of home working or hybrid working within businesses – We are placing temporary workers and contractors within homebased and hybrid roles.

Have you reviewed your homebased and hybrid workers cyber security policy?

We spoke with Luke Gifford Technical Director at Computer Friendly Consultants who told us: “You can absolutely create a safe working space for home based temporary contractors. However, there are considerations that need to be looked at.”  

Luke describes a common mistake companies make is failing to segregate the employees’ home Wi-Fi network. If you think about your own home and how many devices are connected via the Wi-Fi network: mobile phones, TV, Alexa, children’s tablets. Each device on the network adds additional risk to your business if your device shared that same network.

Therefore, it is best practise to create a guest Wi-Fi at home and ensure the business laptop is the only device on this network.  By creating the “network isolation” the laptop cannot interact with any other devices in the home network, therefore granting internet access only.  By doing so you eliminate all risk to your business whilst creating a successful working environment for the contractor.

There are many simple processes your organisation can put in place to optimise your cyber security levels.

The National Security Cyber Centre has put together a guide of how to keep your business safe whilst working with your off-site team.  Download Guide.

Best practise for cyber secure home working:

  • Keep Home and Work Devices Separate:
    • Refrain from using your personal devices to access company platforms. Accessing your organisations data from multiple device locations creates more opportunities for hackers to find a security breach they can exploit.
    • Be aware when doing so from non-work mobile devices since they travel outside the home, connect to public networks, and are more likely to be lost or stolen.
  • Use Unique Passwords:
    • Although it’s easier to remember you must make passwords unique.
    • Employers can help by purchasing a password manager like LastPass or Digital Vault. Not only do these programs encrypt your passwords to keep them safer but they also eliminate the need to remember anything.
  • Be aware of distractions:
    • Phishing scams can often happen when employees are distracted by social scams. Avoid accessing personal emails on your work devices.
  • Turn On Multi-Factor Authentication:
    • Prevent unauthorised access to company platforms and accounts by turning on multi-factor authentication whenever possible.
  • Anti-virus software:
    • This is managed by the employer and renewed accordingly.

For further advice visit the National Cyber Security Centre 

Needing temporary support? Contact our team to discuss your requirements.

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