Telecommuting is pretty great

No crowded subways or rush hour traffic No cafeteria food or expensive meal orders No small talk with co-workers or wearing formal office attire

Most days I can get out of bed, put on whatever is comfortable, and get right to work

Of course, remote work is not without its drawbacks They include loneliness, distractions from pets and family, and zoom fatigue But arguably the biggest problem with remote work is security

Distributed work carries considerable security risks Home networks are rarely as secure as corporate networks, and people who are attentive to other things at work may be more lax in the home office Moreover, even employees who are security-conscious may be put at risk by the ignorance of family members

Not surprisingly, criminals are seizing this opportunity Last year, the rate of cyber attacks increased by 600% Furthermore, 67% of these attacks directly or indirectly targeted remote workers

This is a problem, and not just because it puts employers at risk When criminals use you to access corporate data, they are also accessing your own personal information, from photos to credit cards to medical data In other words, all the data they need to deceive someone

Now let me explain how you can protect yourself

Given the current state of the world, setting boundaries between your professional and personal life is essential for your sanity

But it is also important to protect both business data and personal information With this in mind, it is strongly recommended that you either avoid working on private devices altogether or set up a separate work profile for the device you use

Unless you live alone, you will want to develop the habit of setting up a password-protected lock screen and displaying it whenever you must leave your desk This is especially important if you work in financial services, medicine, law, or any other job that deals with sensitive or privileged data While it is unlikely that your roommates, children, or partner will see something they shouldn't see and get you in trouble, it never hurts to be vigilant

Additionally, if you have a cat, locking the screen can prevent the cat from dancing on the keyboard and erasing hours of work

Needless to say, if you are working remotely, you should definitely avoid public wireless networks Even if you are working on a virtual private network (which I strongly recommend) The dangers of public Wi-Fi are surprisingly well known and include:

Your home network is (hopefully) safer than public Wi-Fi But that's like saying that a screen door is less likely to let a draft in than an open door If you are not consciously taking steps to protect the devices and systems in your home, you may be sitting in a minefield of potential security risks

Here's what you need to do:

Hollywood loves to portray hackers as sophisticated black hat rebels There are certainly such people in the real world, but they are completely rare Most cybercriminals are complete opportunists

Put another way, most criminals rely on making mistakes that allow them access, rather than actively trying to gain access themselves With this in mind, a little forethought goes a long way in protecting oneself

This includes:

Password reuse is something that virtually everyone has been guilty of at one time or another; in 2015, the average Internet user in the UK had at least 118 different accounts That number is likely to have increased in the intervening years

It is frankly impossible to think of and remember so many different logins, especially when they need to be updated regularly That's why it's more imperative than ever to use a password manager That way, you don't have to remember hundreds of passwords, just one

Even the most secure network can be threatened That's why, in addition to the above advice, you need ironclad security software That's where the award-winning Bitdefender Total Security comes in

It monitors your network in real time and actively sniffs out and mitigates any threats it detects It utilizes powerful built-in algorithms to protect your devices from spam, fraud, ransomware, and more And it does all of this in a remarkably light footprint without consuming battery or system resources

And best of all, Bitdefender Total Security is currently on sale for 50% off