Protect your telecommuters and yourself

More than 70 percent of U.S. companies offer full or part-time telecommuting to employees. But most of these companies ignore the risks of telecommuting without the proper security, according to The Center for Democracy and Technology. The missteps are numerous for tempting hackers into a system. In one recent study, Cisco polled more than 1,000 users in 10 countries and found 12 percent of people who work out of the office regularly connect to a neighbor's wireless network when working at home. And that's just one easy way to break the security chain that protects office data from being compromised, reports an article from CSOonline.com.

"Today, this is very easy to do," Ralph DeFrangesco, a computer science professor at Drexel University and consultant who helps companies assess and develop security programs, told CSOonline.com. "You are sitting in a Starbucks or a Borders with your laptop and you need access to the Internet. You open your laptop and connect to the first unsecured network you find."

What can a company do? Plenty. The article suggests employers make sure employees do not change the security settings on their company-issued website, and make sure a work computer is used for just that--work. The message in all of this? Be smart, not careless.

For more on security steps to take:
- check out this CSOonline.com article

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