Often employees find themselves overwhelmed by work they need to finish within a short time. The simple solution is, to send the work to their home computer or connect from the home computer to the office network. By connecting from home computer to the office network the corporate network is exposed to attacks coming from the employee’s home computer without his knowledge.

In most cases the home computer is not configured well enough when connecting to the office network. Let’s assume that this home PC has software installed for sharing application like Emule, or some cracked software downloaded from the Internet, which actually is a rootkit allowing an attacker to access the corporate network, utilizing the employee’s home PC as a gateway.

Every day hackers find new ways to get in from many entry points, such as operation systems, or by using weak points in an antivirus program. Many users do not update with the latest patches, leaving many weak points they are unaware of. However, hackers do know and are not sharing their knowledge. It is of vital importance to search for weak points such as wireless networks, which have made life easier than ever for hackers to come in.

Employees should maintain their PCs with updated Antivirus and a Firewall, and make sure a wireless network is well configured to prevent unauthorized use. On top of that, the main responsibility lies with corporate management to enforce a strict policy for permitting employees to work from home.

Summary: Management and employees should take proactive responsibility to enforce better security – this can be accomplished.

Yigal Behar works as a computer security consultant at 2Secure Corp. Questions and ideas? Please contact us or call 646-666-9601

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