Security

Not really a warm and fuzzy word.  We look for security in our job, our relationships, and sadly, we need it even when we go to the movies these days….

I attended a Rotary program recently  presented by a tech-head on business cyber-security.  Like the presenter, I’ve always been a computer guy, but only in the sense of using them, not in understanding them.

I continue to have a love/hate  relationship with the PC’s in my life.  They are probably jealous of my iPad and iPhone.  They’ve probably overheard my plans to move to the Macbook for my next laptop.

Keep Your Home Office Safe!

I can imagine little tears forming in the corners of my screen, “Why do you forsake me?”

 Steps To Computer Security

The computer guy, Paul Blaugh, gave us ten steps to properly securing your computers, and I confess I am deficient in over half of them.

Of course, he was talking to a group of  men and women about their office IT issues.  But I’m pretty heavily invested with computer needs at home, as are many of you.

So I asked him to relate those same concerns to a home office situation.

I figured I would share those steps with you and what I’m going to do to try to eliminate the holes in my defense against the dark arts of spamming, hacking, spoofing….you get the drill.

I want to share with you  the costs of building my fortress with moat and  guards monitoring my castle 24/7 so you can decide what’s best for you.

Nine Steps To Secure Your Home Office

1. Back up, Back up, Back up: I have a home server, but it’s not working properly because of a lack of hard drive space.  I need to bite the bullet and buy more hard drive.  Computers sometimes just quit.  They die. They can’t always be coaxed back to life.  All your data, pictures, movies, songs: gone gone gone…Hard drives are cheap.
2. Review Backup Success: The guru said many so-called “backups” fail, if you set it and forget it, you might indeed still lose your stuff if your backup isn’t working properly. He has seen tape drive backups fail as much as 50% of the time.
3. Backup offsite: I need to set up a cloud based backup to guard against catastrophic loss of my home, such as a fire or tornado. He recommends Egnyte, which is a monthly service that will not only back up my stuff, but sync my PC, with my laptop, iPad and iPhone.  All my files available all the time, on or offline.  That sounds cool.
4. Viral and Malware:  Good stuff, running all the time, especially when you are surfing, on all computers, up to date always, every time.  Having spent a ton getting two laptops up and running from Malware infections lately, I’m all in here….the free stuff just doesn’t get it.
5. Firewall: A router with password protection is not enough, so says my guru. Within 24 hours of getting online, he says you will be pinged from China, Russia, by folks trying to find a weak spot to invade and take over your system.   Home offices need a combination of hardware and software firewalls.
6. Update, Update, Update: I’ve got computers on auto-update for the operating system (Windows for now) security patches , but I need to check the rest of the computers in the house.  Also, he reminds us to update all the accessory programs like flash or Adobe. Don’t ignore those annoying requests for updating. Most of those are for security reasons…. Back door penetration is not just for porn lovers….
7. Plan: Have a simple disaster plan, credit card accounts, passwords with relevant phone numbers for family, your internet provider,  your phone carriers numbers, and anyone you might need to contact. Have copies in the Cloud and a hard copy at a neighbor, relative, or bank deposit box. If your home or office is destroyed, you need a way to get up and running as soon as possible.
8. Spam filters: Spam is not just annoying.  Many contain viruses, malware or phishing schemes to take money away from you.
9. Mobile devises: The attack is not just against PC’s and laptops. Your smart phone and tablets are vulnerable too.  Android devices are under constant attack by the bad guys.

Back Up Your Back Ups

The name of the game here is redundancy.

Many of these recommendations are basically back-ups for your backup. You back up onsite, you back up in the cloud, then you are protected unless Aliens come to destroy the planet-and maybe someday there will be a cloud service on the moon or Mars…

With Firewalls, malware, antivirus, and spam filters you’re covering all the bases for both intrusion over your broadband but also protects against your computer sending out sensitive data from your files if you are hacked.

Don’t forget your phone. Android system hacking is apparently going crazy the world over.

Reader Questions

As I implement these changes to our home office security, I will keep you posted on the degree of difficulty and costs.  What are your thoughts? What have you done at home to protect yourself and those devices you’ve become dependent?

{photo credit: dnikolos c.c.}

Tags: does your home office need more tech security, hacking protection at home, home office tech security, how to protect your home office network, protecting your home office against hacking

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2012 at 6:00 am and is filed under Home Improvement, personal finance, Quality of Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.