In recent years co-working office environments have greatly increased in popularity. While shared offices are a great way to aid collaboration and innovative thinking. There is often a grey area around who is responsible for protecting critical company data.
What are the potential threats facing businesses in shared offices?
When using co-working spaces, unsecured Wi-Fi networks and lack of security measures can easily lead to data breaches. Many users simply connect to the shared Wi-Fi and conduct business as usual, not thinking about the security of the network they are connecting to. However, once you are connected, you are opening a gateway for bad actors to gain access to your sensitive data and even view your network traffic.
There are two types of organisations, those who have been breached and then those who do not know that they have been breached. Cyber security cannot be ignored. It is time to move beyond the foolish mentality that ‘it won’t happen to me’.
As shared offices are now in high demand, organisations need to take full autonomy of their IT security to reduce the risk of cyber-attacks. Having proper security software in place can help you avoid malicious attacks and help secure your systems from data breaches.
How can businesses in shared offices improve security?
When it comes to Cyber Security many organisations simply don’t know where to start… but it is ok to accept that you feel a little overwhelmed! Cyber security can seem complicated, which is why it is important to seek the advice of security specialists like ourselves. Here at Equilibrium, we have over 18 years’ experience designing and implementing bespoke security solutions. We can help you to take control and make data security a top business priority.
What do we suggest?
- Work with a security experts to help build an effective cyber security strategy which works for your business needs.
- Implement intelligent security controls which help you to quickly prevent, detect and remediate malware that evades security defenses.
- Conduct a security review at least once a year, assessing your network, policies and procedures
- When accessing company data you should always use a virtual private network (VPN) Even when browsing the web, VPNs can help protect you while connected to untrusted networks.
- Carry out regular penetration tests to help determine any weaknesses in your security armour and gaps in your protection
- Don’t over share! Offer regular employee training to encourage data protection best practice within the work place
- Go big on password security and 2 factor authentication! Make sure your employees are using strong passwords. Make them as long and as random as possible (including upper and lower case letters and special characters). Password managers are very beneficial, these also highlight when passwords are used for multiple accounts. (bad idea)
Cyber-attacks can be extremely damaging not only financially but also to a company’s brand and reputation. If you suffer a cyber breach you could lose important data, face regulatory fines and the time consuming task of remediations. As such, computer security has become important for protecting customer data from cyber threats. Cyber-breach protection needs to be seen as a top priority for all organisations as it could irreparably damage your network and assets.
The defence against these security breaches has to be an ongoing effort to remain protected. It is important to have a tried tested incident response plan, risk-based patch management and network segmentation on top of regular software security. — This will dramatically increase a business’s resilience against malicious attacks.
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