Staying safe in the sun—Posted on July 15, 2008

The great British summer has arrived! A recent survey by YouGov has found that 79% of people in the UK are getting less than one hour of fresh air a day - leading to many wanting to get out more - without losing access to the Internet. Earlier this month, St James Park in London set up a number of ‘hot desks’, complete with free Wi-Fi, reception area and even a water cooler, so that people could get out of the office and still get on with their work.

And why shouldn’t we be embracing the freedom that technology offers us? With new wireless hotspots popping up everywhere, and increasingly faster broadband speeds, more and more companies - both SMEs and large corporations - are embracing remote working.

This does beg the question however, how safe is remote working? Is leaving the office leaving your secure network?

We all know that viruses have the potential to attack home PCs and laptops, not always as secure as computers at the office. We also know that the human element is ever fallible! Passwords can be lost, unlocking the key to strictly confidential information, or use of laptops via WiFi connections in public places can leave private information open to potential hackers.

But does this mean we should stay cooped up in the office? Of course not - but we must follow some basic rules! Ensuring workers are able to establish a secure connection is essential. Most companies will usually have a firewall in place, which protects the corporate network from the Internet. You can upgrade this further by using an encrypted tunnel; an IPSec Virtual Private Network (VPN). VPNs allow a number of devices to be connected using the Internet, with any data transfers being encrypted. This means that you can be using anyone’s Internet connection - without worrying about security - and still have the same access as if you were at your desk in the office.

Firewalls and VPNs that protect systems from external attack work alongside other IT security tools, such as anti-virus or anti-spyware software. Many workers fail to install these - or if they do, fail to update them. This should be done regularly to keep up with the latest threats.

Then there is the aforementioned human element! Businesses can go that extra mile to protect themselves by educating the workforce, before they let them loose into the outside world. A simple set of ‘do’s and don’ts of remote working usually does the trick. IT departments need to make certain staff only use devices they know about and can control, for accessing the office network. However, a remote working policy for any large organisation should accept that, while IT departments would like staff to only use devices under the IT departments control, some users will, often no matter what obstacles are put in front of them, use their own devices. Technologies such as ‘end-point security verification’ can ensure that appropriate security software is installed, even on these otherwise uncontrolled systems.

Ensuring that files are backed up, installing firewalls to protect against the latest data threats and introducing company wide do and don’ts, plus working with a reliable service provider, all go a long way to protect the security of the remote worker. All you have to do now is wait for the rain to stop...