Cyber Defense eMagazine July 2020 Edition

What can you do to protect your workforce and business from being compromised? We have compiled
a list of some of the most effective measures to be undertaken to protect your organization.
Make Sure Your Security Policy Is Valid
The COVID-19 outbreak has highlighted that most organizations’ cybersecurity policies, especially
policies regarding mobile computing and teleworking, may be inadequate. Businesses have been
scrambling to change the guidelines to adapt to the pandemic. Very few organizations would have had a
business continuity strategy that solved all the issues brought about by the seismic shift to home working.
Specific policies to update may revolve around the physical protection of company IT equipment, making
sure children or relatives do not use company assets, which can help to keep assets in good working
condition. If additional technology is needed by the employee, such as extra monitors, keyboards, or
printers, a formal process should exist to track where company assets are located. Perhaps logging a
service desk ticket for management teams to approve the removal of company technology. This process
greatly improves how assets can be tracked.
Other control measures can be introduced or updated to define the organization's rules and regulations
on the usage of laptops, computers, handheld tablets, mobile phones, and digital media, including disks
and memory sticks.
Keep Data Protection Relevant
Maintaining data protection is critically important for organizations, even more so when employees are
working from home. Organizations are duty-bound by government regulations to uphold data protection.
The regulations still apply no matter where the employees are working, be that an office-based role, or
when working from home.
All laptops should have some form of data encryption software installed, such as Microsoft BitLocker.
This software protects the data stored on the employee’s physical device. In the event a company device
is lost or stolen, the data is secured and encrypted. Domain policies can force remote terminals to lock
the screen after a few minutes of inactivity during the lockdown period.
All portable equipment should have a machine or boot-up password, and a domain user account that
should be required when powered up. This may be a BIOS protected screen lock, or it might just be the
Windows Logon utility. Either way, the device must not boot straight into the operating system without
prompting for credentials. This will stop unauthorized access to the data stored on the equipment.
Secure Physical Assets
High valued assets must already have the standard security features such as usernames, passwords,
and PINs. Extreme care should be taken with mobile computing being used outside of the organization’s
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