The pandemic has increased the number of people that have started working from home. It does not matter if you have always worked from home because you are self-employed or your company has recently made arrangements so that you can work from home, you still need to ensure that your home office is physically secure.
Be Mindful of Your Office Décor
Office décor is not just a reflection of your personal taste, but it can offer extra safety for your working space. Regardless of whether you work alone or your clients visit you, you should be mindful of the décor you choose for your office. Things such as blinds and curtains can provide privacy for your home office as thieves will be unable to see your equipment when they pass by.
Your home office should look like any other room in your house so be mindful of this, especially during the night. Turn off all devices when you have finished your work for the day as the light from the screens can draw unwanted attention.
When using your home office for video conferencing calls, be mindful of what appears in the background. Remove any expensive items like artwork or jewelry that might be in sight for these video calls with clients or webinars that can be accessed by the public.
Lock Away Physical Documents
Your home office is likely to contain documents with sensitive information about the company and clients. It is important to store these documents in the safest way to avoid losing them or leaking any information that they have. Filing cabinets can be the safest way to store these physical documents.
To store documents, ensure that there is a plan for how they are to be managed. There should be an organizational method for storage such as alphabetical order or date. Try to lock your documents away as your children or their friends might snoop around your home office and lose or damage important documents.
Purchase a Shredder
We might live in a digital age, but we frequently use physical papers that contain sensitive information. Purchasing a shredder can be a great security measure as it ensures that your work documents which contain sensitive information don’t pile up in your home office.
When you tear up work documents, thieves, corporate spies and neighbors can easily glue them back together. This gives them information that they can use to exploit you. Documents that you should shred are:
- Personal Records: Personal records are likely to contain your ID number, name and address. This information can be found in legal documents, tax and financial information.
- Financial Documentation: this can be found in ATM receipts, bank statements, property transactions and returned cheques. These documents are likely to contain your card number and your signature. Criminals can then use this information for fraudulent purposes like benefiting from your store credit.
- Business Documentation: Business Documentation that contains client and customer information, research and developments as well as any printed presentations that contain sensitive information should be shredded.
Install a Security System
Working from home leaves you vulnerable from any attacks from thieves. Security systems offer you protection for your family as well as your home office possessions. A few of the security measures you can take are:
- Installing a Security Camera: Security cameras can be linked to a security company. This would mean that if a break in were to occur they would be able to respond quickly. You can also get security camera footage from an app on your mobile device allowing you to see any danger and taking control before things escalate.
- Install motion sensor beams: Motion sensor beams can be part of your alarm system; they act as an early warning system for your home.
- Burglar Bars: You can choose to have burglar bars fitted on your home office windows which restricts access to burglars as they are difficult to remove.
Secure Your WiFi
Your WiFi router is an important gadget that controls your WiFi network enabling access to all your devices. The danger is that if someone had to gain access to the network, it could easily compromise your devices. There are however ways to prevent the risk of this occurring.
Firstly, you should ensure that you are using WPA2 security to protect access to your router. This ensures that every new device that wants to connect to your network must submit a password. Ensure that you change your passwords regularly and choose passwords that are hard to guess and that you won’t forget.
Secondly, your router should be rebooted regularly in order to frequently receive updates that could enable your security features.
Conclusion
Home office security should be prioritized as it not only protects you and your data, but your clients and customers as well. When trying to implement physical security measures for your home office, the five steps listed above can be effective in doing just that.
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