by Matthew Reed, CEO, Zebis
We are still adjusting to a world with coronavirus and conducting daily business from home. While modern technology is wonderful in its portability and many of us have worked from home on a limited basis, big risks are lurking in the background. There have already been signs of predators, and beyond security are quality of service differences between your home and office networks.
The term network refers to a group of electronic devices that are able to interact with each other, which means one “sick” device can infect another. And why companies institute best practices that stipulate the IT version of social distancing between devices. There are many safety systems to ensure devices are not too close together, unlike your standard home network where every device is very close together and susceptible to spreading a virus.
This has been demonstrated many times. For example, Check Point Research showed seemingly innocuous smart light bulbs could allow an attacker to gain access to your network and consequently any device, which contain personal information, connected to it. Companies that adhere to best practices or “social distancing” of devices are not susceptible to attacks of this type. The lesson: There is a risk whenever a group of devices are allowed to freely interact without separation.
It is expected we will see a surge of cyber attacks and identity thefts as a result of so many of us working from home over insecure networks. But as we are learning social distancing is curbing the spread of coronavirus, we know a separation of devices on your home network will curb the spread of an infection from an attacker. So, consider how many devices are on your home’s network – your smart TVs, thermostats, doorbell, refrigerator, printers – all close enough to infect your computer containing sensitive information.
We also need to consider smart televisions and the popular voice-activated digital assistant devices in our home can discreetly record conversations and transmit them across the Internet. You may wonder why an attacker would be interested in exploiting a residential network. It’s because they only need a small amount of information to start the process of identity theft. And it’s very easy for them by using automated scanning methods with so many residential networks unsecured.
Attackers can also harness your computer’s resources to assist with attacking others and, if they determine you have a business computer, they will wait until you connect to your office to compromise your company’s systems.
Now that we have discussed security, let’s talk about the performance and reliability of your home connection. In the IT industry, we call this quality of service. On a proper company network, not every device receives the same connection priority while a home network treats every device equally. You will notice this when a family member is playing a bandwidth-intensive video game, streaming a movie or uploading a video at the same time you are trying to establish a remote connection to the office and your Internet bandwidth diminishes.
It’s important to have intelligent quality of service systems to apply proper priority to each group of items in your home, so you don’t have to worry about low-priority tasks interfering with the performance or stability of important higher priority tasks.
This is where the Zebis Self-Install Work-at-Home Network is the solution by providing you with a business-grade network for your home. Zebis has developed the WaH Network to be very intelligent, allow your home systems to safely coexist with your company’s systems, and provide the same quality of service on which you rely at your company. And it can be less than $700.
It’s effortless to install, generally taking 10 to 15 minutes, without sending anyone to your home. Plus, the WaH Network kit includes support so you can avoid open-ended hourly fees and remote service capabilities are built in to the hardware to avert lengthy phone calls guiding you through fixing any problems – saving you time and money.
About Zebis
Zebis was founded in 2001 on Sanibel Island and manages fractional IT departments for businesses and provides concierge IT for premium residences across the United States. Zebis also launched IT Essentials in 2018 answering the needs of smaller business and residential environments. Learn more at zebis.com.
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