When Jane Katungi received a brand-new laptop and a smartphone as part of her home working package, she was elated. “Every crisis comes with a silver lining”, she whispered to a friend as she packed her newly acquired gadgets as she moved her office to home.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way people live, work, and communicate. Traditional leadership styles have been disrupted too. Every disruption brings opportunities and threats. Whereas Jane’s employer was flexible and agile in providing the required capabilities in terms of a laptop and a smartphone to act as a modem to connect to the Internet from the home office, they forgot a critical element of security hygiene briefing for remote workers.
Remote-working (teleworking) is a must for several enterprises to survive in business today, following the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. There has been an unprecedented rise in virtual workplaces where employees are working from geographically dispersed areas, both within and outside standard business hours. Remote working has been fostered by various information and communication technologies that include e-mail, videoconferencing, teleconferencing, discussion groups, chat rooms, project management software, collaborative design tools, knowledge management systems, and message boards.
Nonetheless, it is important to note that with the influx of virtual teams also comes cybersecurity concerns that could frustrate all efforts for the anticipated benefit, not to mention the fake COVID-19 help guides that hackers use to exploit unsuspecting users and the ‘zoomboombing’ that has had several videoconferencing sessions hijacked with pornography and/or violent hateful material. It is upon these grounds that we would like to equip you with reliable security tips to succeed as a remote worker. In times like these, you cannot wait for guidance from the employer. You must take the initiative to learn the basics on your own so that you achieve your targets in a secure environment.
