Articles about Work from home

Many things have come as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the increased usage of video messaging and video conferencing tools is one interesting phenomenon. At the start of coronavirus-related lockdowns and periods of working from home, Zoom rocketed in popularity -- but the service soon found its security practices under close scrutiny and in receipt of strong criticism.

In the intervening month, Zoom did a lot of work to improve not only its images, but also the security of its platform and safety of its users. Continuing this trend, the company has launched a new automatic update feature for the Windows and macOS versions of the Zoom client.

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New research from SecureAge Technology finds that 85 percent of US and UK employers have been forced to adopt new cybersecurity measures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to remote work.

Of those that adopted new cybersecurity defenses, both US (41 percent) and UK (38 percent) businesses note that 'technical implementation challenges' are the primary hurdle in getting their new COVID-driven cybersecurity protocols and strategies in place.

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A new survey of over 4,000 global IT workers, carried out by Kaspersky shows that 54 percent of employees have reported an increased workload since switching to remote working.

While 37 percent of respondents didn't notice a change in volume, a lucky nine percent note a decrease in work due to new working conditions.

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With the vaccine rollout continuing and positivity on the horizon due to significant reduction in COVID-19 cases, companies are now planning how to return workers to the office safely. To start, employees will most likely return to a hybrid workplace, one where they rotate in and out of the office, part of the time in the office and work from home the rest of the time.

Securing your network and employees will be critical during transitions. While small businesses may perceive this to be a matter of going back to "business as usual" and resuming normal IT operations, there are a number of complexities brought on by the mass exodus out of office that need to be considered. Just as in the beginning of the pandemic, cyber criminals will almost certainly increase their phishing attempts and other malicious attacks, taking advantage of overlooked network vulnerabilities and resource-thin IT teams. To protect their networks, employees and critical data, companies will need to create plans and introduce new safety protocols to ensure security as employees transition between working from home and in the office.

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Working remotely is no longer a temporary anomaly due to COVID-19. Instead, working from home has become a movement where employees aim to take control of their lives. For instance, workers are saving money by not buying gas for their cars, but more importantly, the lack of a commute means more personal time. Employees can also sleep later rather than sit in traffic.

If you are working form home, I highly recommend investing in quality webcams and audio equipment. If you want to stand out in a meeting, you should be both seen and heard clearly. You don't want to be known as the person that is hard to see or understand.

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As more organizations begin to establish plans to return to the physical office, the majority of employees are still expecting to conduct their work in a hybrid environment post-pandemic. Many businesses are navigating what this means for their infrastructure as a hybrid environment brings its own set of challenges for cybersecurity.

At the start of the pandemic, as physical offices closed and employees were sent to work from home, businesses were forced to immediately adapt their infrastructure and security measures. No longer were employees working from desktop computers behind a firewall in the office. Instead, many were on brand new laptops that were purchased at the last minute and deployed with an immature security posture. With an impending hybrid work environment, organizations are starting to evaluate their temporary security measures in lieu of more permanent controls better suited for the organization.

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The past year has seen us become more isolated than ever before. With multiple national lockdowns and stay-at-home orders issued, we’ve ended up spending most of our time within the same four walls. Whether we’ve worked or socialized from home, we’ve been far away from the people we know and love.

Though it’s often criticized for damaging real-life relationships and interactions, technology has replicated some of the experiences we’ve missed out on. Businesses have hosted virtual meetings and conferences, we’ve taken part in Zoom pub nights, and our favorite performers held virtual gigs. Of course, this technology can’t replicate some of our in-person experiences. But imagine how much more we’d have struggled without these digital options.

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Yeah, COVID-19 changed the world -- we all know this. But nothing changed more than office work environments. Even as the pandemic slowly fades away, many employees are still working from home, with no plans to ever return to a physical office. And so, videoconferencing is more crucial than ever before.

With all of that said, if your webcam is of poor quality, it can reflect on you negatively. Look, it may not be your fault, but a grainy video feed is akin to going into an in-person meeting with a big stain on your shirt. In other words, investing in a high-quality camera can be very impactful on your perceived job performance -- it could literally have an affect on other peoples' perception of you.

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One in three employees has developed bad security habits while working remotely according to a new survey.

The study from human layer security company Tessian finds younger employees are most likely to admit they cut cybersecurity corners, 51 percent of 16-24 year-olds and 46 percent of 25-34 year-olds report that they’ve used security workarounds.

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A new report from hardware authentication company Yubico finds 42 percent of UK employees say they feel more vulnerable to cyber threats while working from home, with 39 percent feeling unsupported by IT.

The study of over 3,000 people in the UK, France and Germany also reveals that 54 percent of all employees use the same passwords across multiple work accounts. In addition 22 percent of respondents still keep track of passwords by writing them down, including 41 percent of business owners and 32 percent of C-level executives.

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Almost half of people would and nearly two-thirds would forego a promotion, according to the results of a new survey.

The study by automation platform Ivanti finds 63 percent of respondents would rather work remotely than be promoted, and 48 percent say they would take a pay cut in exchange to be able to work from anywhere. Just 12 percent say they want to return to the office full time in future.

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The COVID-19 pandemic is slowly coming to an end in the USA. Thanks to Joe Biden's successful vaccination efforts, we can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. Even though businesses are starting to open back up, many workers are not planning to return to the office. In other words, working from home will remain popular even as the coronavirus fades away.

Working from home is quite feasible nowadays, but communicating over the internet is still far from perfect. To have a better communication experience, workers should invest in good hardware, such as PC webcams and microphones. Today, AVerMedia releases an intriguing USB conference speakerphone. Called "AS311," it utilizes artificial intelligence. Yeah, it is a speakerphone with AI -- how cool is that?

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Even after a full year of remote work, many enterprises are still concerned about securing their off-site users according to a new study from cloud security company Bitglass.

The biggest remote work security concerns come from data leaking through endpoints (68 percent), users connecting with unmanaged devices (59 percent), and access from outside the perimeter (56 percent).

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A new content collaboration platform for 64-bit ARM processors will deliver the first viable self-hosted web office solution for the popular Raspberry Pi 4.

The result of a joint effort between Canonical, Collabora and Nextcloud this will allow Raspberry Pi users to turn their Pi 4 into a self-hosted content collaboration and document editing solution in just a few minutes.

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The pandemic forced many employees into remote work, and cybercriminals are looking to exploit the situation by directly attacking remote desktop services as they become publicly available. Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) has become a prime target. According to a study released by the cybersecurity firm ESET, attacks against RDP have increased a stunning 768 percent over the course of 2020. Malware packages like Trickbot now include RDP scanners to search for open RDP ports, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have begun using RDP as a way to magnify their impact.

This is not to say that RDP or Windows are inherently bad. RDP is an extremely useful, complex, and functionally rich protocol for remote access. The open source project I work on, Apache Guacamole, leverages RDP internally as one of its supported protocols.

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