Stay Cybersafe when working remotely (and have fun while doing it!)

Stay Cybersafe when working remotely (and have fun while doing it!)

November 26, 2019

As the crisp fall weather turns to frigid winter, you may find yourself working from home more in the coming days and weeks than you have all year!

Here are a couple of tips to keep yourself safe (and sane) while you type and click your way through the day.

 

How healthy is your computer?

There is a basic security health measures that you need to ensure are applied to your work and home computers:

Encryption: It is important that all computers used to access UBC electronic information must be encrypted. Not sure how to do that? Click here for more information.

Anti-Virus: Ensure you have anti-virus installed. A computer supplied by UBC will have UBC Anti-Virus already applied. For your home computer, there are a number of free or inexpensive options available such as Sophos Home Use

 

Safely connect to the UBC network and save your work

You can use UBC’s Virtual Private Network (VPN; myVPN) to gain access to the UBC network anytime you are off-campus, and when using non-secure wireless access points. This is free for staff and faculty use, and a VPN connection provides a dedicated data tunnel, with encryption, to protect data and prevent others from listening-in on the data that is transferred between your computer and the campus network.

An alternative to UBC VPN is the Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) service. Some departments offer the VDI service through UBC Information Technology, which creates a "virtual" computer that can be accessed from home computers, laptops, desktops, tablets and even smartphones.

You can find further documentation related to VDI here.

It is never good practise to save UBC related information onto a local hard drive. This is especially true on a home computer or a computer shared with other people in your family. Ensure you know how to safely save documents to a UBC file sharing service (e.g. Workspace, TeamShare, Network folder).

 

Make the experience your own

Find a space in your house or apartment that you can designate as your work space. If you have a space in your home which you share with other people, make sure that you don’t leave your computer unlocked when logged on to the UBC Network, and take care not to leave any paperwork lying around which might contain UBC information.

And finally, remember to take breaks away from your screen! Whilst it is easy to relish in the quiet at home, it is essential to take breaks to avoid eye strain or headache.