In the first week of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NSCAM), we covered the theme, If You Connect It, Protect It. This week, we will cover Securing Devices at Home and Work.

2020 saw a major disruption in the way many work, learn, and socialize online. Our homes are more connected than ever. Our businesses are more connected than ever. With more people now working from home, these two internet-connected environments are colliding on a scale we’ve never seen before, introducing a whole new set of potential vulnerabilities that users must be conscious of. Week 2 of Cybersecurity Awareness Month will focus on steps users and organizations can take to protect internet connected devices for both personal and professional use. 

Bring Your Own Device vs. Bring Your Work Device Home

In the early 2000s, we saw the onset of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), where organizations were allowing the use of personal devices for work functions. It can range by organization but can be a cell phone or laptop that is able to connect to the corporate network so that an employee can execute their daily functions from the comfort of their selected device. Now, in 2020, we have almost the opposite happening, organizations are supporting devices that are connecting on unmonitored home networks. Not only are the employees leveraging their home networks, but potentially so are the others that reside under the same roof.

When home life and work life bleed together, like they have for so many folks in 2020, we find that a general set of guidelines on how to protect your devices works best:

  • Have a solid inventory of your connected devices – do you know all the devices that are connected and how they are behaving
  • Make sure that your devices are updated with the proper operating system, there are no recalls on the devices, and all applications are verified and not listed on any blocklist
  • Use caution with every email, link, and application – slow down during your workday or when just perusing, never click on links from unknown sources, and try to understand the risks associated with engaging on any platform
  • When in doubt, always reach out to your IT or security team if something looks suspicious or is acting inappropriately

How Ordr Can Help 

In the true spirit of Ordr’s mission of protecting all connected devices and creating a safer network infrastructure. Recently, we began an IoT Discovery Program that allows you to:

  • Gain high-fidelity visibility into devices that you may not know are in your network
  • Understand risks including communication patterns and vulnerabilities
  • Discover usage patterns for your devices
  • Map these devices to your Layer 2 and Layer 3 architecture
  • Identify appropriate segmentation policies to secure your devices

If you feel this program would be a good fit for your organization, register here: https://ordr.net/sensor/

Through the Cybersecurity Awareness month of October, we will be releasing a set of blogs to focus on weekly topics. Next Tuesday, catch our blog on “Securing Internet – Connected Devices in Healthcare”.

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