Episode: 113

Episode Title: How Good Is Your Cyber Hygiene?

The pandemic has blurred the line between our personal and business lives—making good cyber hygiene more critical than ever. How’s yours? Let’s talk about it next, on The Perna Syndicate.

Ep 113 show:

Hello, and welcome—I’m your host, Mark Perna! With a significant cross-section of the labor force working from home for the foreseeable future, cybersecurity has become a huge challenge. What employees are doing online with corporate-issued devices can have significant ramifications for companies—even more so today, when it’s all happening on employees’ home networks.

Prior to the pandemic, the line between our personal and business lives was already blurring. That trend has accelerated significantly this past year, with a recent Mimecast study finding that 60% of respondents increased their personal use of company devices since the pandemic.

With their own devices being claimed by other family members who are also working or learning from home, employees are now spending almost two hours a day using company devices for personal activities. 

That’s understandable, but how careful are they being? Another study by Tessian found that when working from home, roughly half of employees are less likely to follow safe data practices than when they’re in the office.

That’s why cyber hygiene—which is simply the best practices to improve cybersecurity while engaging in common activities online—is suddenly such a critical workplace skill. Companies are looking for responsible employees who will tread carefully on the world wide web. 

So how’s your cyber hygiene? It’s really just street smarts for the virtual age—and it’s something we can all brush up on. 

Cyber hygiene is more important than ever—but who’s doing it better, men or women? We’ll talk about that and more on the show tomorrow…see you then!