How to make sure your home office stays secure all year round

The old ways are well and truly done with – and home working is now the norm for many of us.

After the pandemic forced us to embrace turning our homes into workplaces, the focus now turns to making the places into a productive and efficient location to work.

But security is always a concern for home working, with the less formal situation and physical distance from the office often leading to relaxed attitudes. But don’t worry – with our top tips, you can ensure your home office stays safe and secure.

Get all of your devices safe, all of the time

Now many of us are settled working from home, you’ll more than likely have your home office set-up just how you like it, with all the hardware and devices you need.

It’s more than likely that this setup will include more than just a PC, with extra devices such as printers, tablets, and even your internet router itself can be weak spots when it comes to security, as potentially lower protections can allow hackers a simple entry route into your network.

Using a security solution such as Bitdefender Total Security (opens in new tab) can greatly help protect and secure all your home office devices, as the platform works across multiple software versions, including Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It can be used across up to 15 devices per household, making sure your home office remains safe against threats 

Fire up a VPN

Most of us will have been familiar with using a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, before making the move to a home office, however the technology has certainly come into its own in the last few years.

Allowing workers to stay connected to a workplace intranet or collaboration network, VPNs have become a vital office tool, but it can also provide a useful security boost.

A VPN is able to disguise your internet connection to your liking, making it appear to originate from a different location or even country, meaning your online activity and location should be safe from any snooping. 

Bitdefender Total Security (opens in new tab) comes packaged with its own Secure VPN service that offers complete online privacy – and with a 200MB/day allowance, you can ensure your online enjoyment is kept a secret.   

Boost your passwords

We’re all aware of the need for strong passwords, but working from a comfortable home location can cause some of us to get a bit too relaxed when it comes to security.

Keeping your passwords fresh, changing them every few months if possible, is a crucial step to ensure your vital online accounts, whether work or personal, stay secure. 

To help you keep track of all these passwords, Bitdefender Total Security (opens in new tab) comes with an in-built Password Manager service to look after all your details, meaning you can create tough-to-crack logins for each account, as re-using passwords across multiple accounts means that all it takes is for one to be compromised for hackers to gain knowledge of your logins to everything else. 

Remain on your guard

Whether you’re kicking off a start-up journey, or work as part of a larger organization, your data will be an attractive target for criminals.

We’ve covered how having a strong password is vital, as discovering or stealing login details or personal data such as a date of birth or phone number could help hackers access your accounts.

Staying vigilant to anything suspicious is always the best course of action, particularly when it comes to working from home. Always make sure that any links you click in an email, or any attachments, are from a recognised and trusted source – simply double-checking the name of the sender or the email header can be enough. Don’t open risky emails from anyone you don’t know – especially if on a work device – as the consequences could be pretty costly.

Bitdefender Total Security (opens in new tab) features a range of tools to make you stay protected from all the latest threats, including an advanced filtering system that warns you whenever you visit websites that may try to scam you. There’s also advanced anti-phishing protection that helps sniff out and block any websites that masquerade as trustworthy in order to steal financial data such as passwords or credit card numbers. 

For news on all the latest threats, you can also get real-time updates about malware outbreaks and scams on the Bitdefender Blog (opens in new tab).