Security and Sustainability in the Home Office
As a result of recent events in our world, many have turned their home into their office as well. Working from home or “hybrid” home office schedules have become the norm. Fortunately, there are ways to have a secure working environment and promote sustainability at home, while still being productive.
While Smart Home Devices Are Convenient and Make Our Lives Easier, They Are Also Possible Attack Points, Opening the Front Door to Hackers.
Ah, the creature comforts of home! Most homes today have Amazon Alexa, Ring doorbells, security cameras, thermostats, and smart lights/outlets. While these items make our lives easier and convenient, they are also possible attack points for hackers. While working from home, if you connect your work laptop on the same network as your home Wi‑Fi, your hacked thermostat could be an entry point into your office network. Scary thought! Ideally, just like at your office, we recommend a separate Wi-Fi network for your IoT devices or personal PCs and the network that you connect to with your work device. In this scenario, your work PC should be on the “guest” network and thereby isolated from all your devices on your primary home network. This is not always possible because it limits access to devices such as family printer from your work device. An alternative would be to ensure that you have strong endpoint security software along with a zero-trust solution on your work device.
Home Office Sustainability Tips to Protect Your Equipment and Save Energy
As for sustainability at home, if you have a home office setup, an eco-surge protector outlet strip is a must. It not only protects expensive equipment, but it will also turn off the other outlets that have monitors, speakers and printers plugged in when the laptop and/or docking station isn't pulling power. Another helpful and easy tip is to always shut your laptop or computer off (put it to sleep) when you are done working for the day! You may be surprised how much energy this can save!
If everyone does their part, we can all make our home office environment safe and environmentally friendly. That’s a win-win in our book! Contact IT Radix today for more tips for your home office.
First published in our February 2023 IT Radix Resource newsletter
