The last few years have had a major effect on many aspects of our lives, not least in the world of work.
With the pandemic necessitating a shift to working from home, many of us have had to adapt to a new way of working, with either a positive or negative effect on productivity seen by most.
But with many businesses choosing to adopt a hybrid working approach that splits work between multiple locations, how can you ensure that your remote office working setup stays secure? Here's some tips to help you stay protected.
Get your inbox slimmed down
Summer diets are all in vogue, but what about your bloated inbox? Many of us dream of “inbox zero”, but an overcrowded or disorganised email account could end up being a serious security issue, as well as slowing down your browser.
Using enforceable rules and filters on your emails with enforceable rules can ease the strain on your inbox, sorting messages into different folders depending on their content and also boosting security.
Making sure that emails with suspicious attachments, titles or even email senders straight into your spam or junk folder greatly reduces the chance of falling victim to a cyberattack. Fortunately Bitdefender Total Security (opens in new tab) includes a comprehensive anti-spam system to keep your inbox safe, working across email clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Thunderbird to make sure your messages are protected.
Beware phishing emails
Phishing emails may have been around for years, but sadly they still often prove effective – and could be especially dangerous if you're starting hybrid working for the first time.
The scams, where criminals target victims using legitimate-looking emails hiding malicious links, often use realistic assets to spoof a real company, such as similar branding and corporate images looking to fool users into clicking. Victims can be hooked by fake CEO messages, invoices from a fake accounting department, and even pretend IT department messages.
Bitdefender Total Security (opens in new tab) comes with a range of tools to keep you protected, including advanced anti-phishing protection that helps sniff out and block any malicious websites that try to steal your financial data, passwords or credit card numbers, as well as an advanced filtering system warning if you visit websites that may try to scam you, hopefully helping to keep you safe.
Keep your personal data protected
Hybrid working often means mixing personal and work-issued devices, meaning that one slip-up or mistake, however innocent, could put not just your employer's data at risk, but also your own.
Your identity and personal data is often the most valuable for hackers, so always ensure any email or website asking for such details is legitimate and from a trusted source. If an email seems suspect, don't click on any links within, and remember many important organisations won't ask for personal data in an email.
Bitdefender Total Security (opens in new tab) comes with a range of tools to protect from ID theft, including a strong privacy firewall, specialised social network protection, and high-end threat detection systems to stop sophisticated malware alongside technologies to protect against zero-day attacks and multi-layer ransomware protection.
Give your passwords a makeover
Finally, it may sound obvious, but when it comes to staying safe, having hard-to-guess, tough passwords is one of the best ways to create an extra level of security in your home working set-up.
Having unique and complex passwords for different accounts is common advice, and it's worth remembering that if you don't, hackers may only need to gain access to one of your accounts to potentially access all of them.
Bitdefender Total Security (opens in new tab) features an in-built Password Manager tool to keep track of all your login details, safeguarding all the vital information and giving you one less thing to worry about as you adapt to the new world of work.
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