Part 3 of the Remote Work Best Practices series addresses concerns around creating  telecommuting policies. Thank you to our partners, Greensfelder Attorneys at Law for their guidance.

During these days of rapid change and long isolation, it is easy to lose sight of the organization's longer-term needs.  Now is a good time to slow down and assess your organization’s strengths and challenges so that when we do return to a new normal, you’ll be able to upscale quickly with employees who are clear about and committed to your mission and vision.

For the next few days, we will be sharing Legal best practices around the ever-changing workforce challenges that Illinois Manufacturers are facing.

New unemployment laws and the switch to remote work environments can be tricky. Thank you to our partners, Greensfelder Attorneys at Law for their guidance.

IT / OT Infrastructure, Digital Information and IoT devices

With the spread of COVID-19, new challenges and opportunities will arise for keeping your business safe from cybersecurity threats. As the government and businesses work on mitigating the impact of the ongoing outbreak, social distancing measures are leading to an increase in remote working across all sectors. The immediate challenge is “how can I protect my digital assets from a cyber-attack?” Some key vulnerabilities to a cyberattack are Information Technology / Operational Technology (IT / OT) infrastructure, digital information and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

"The times they are a changin’”-Bob Dylan 1964

No doubt all our work schedules and routines have been altered in the last few weeks. If we still report to a station in our workplace, procedures and social distances have changed. This impacts our communication style and frequency. If we are now remote, more drastic changes have occurred. Conversations with colleagues and customers may have most likely decreased from our normal rate and volume. Communication styles and tools have also changed, particularly for the remote worker.

This is an original NIST Cybersecurity Insights blog post, written by Jeff Greene.

Your employer has unexpectedly directed you to telework—and you are feeling overwhelmed. With many changes happening at once, telework security could be an afterthought or completely overlooked. This could put you and your organization at increased risk from attackers, who are always looking for opportunities to take advantage of disruption generally and weak security practices specifically. But it’s more than your organization at risk—if your telework device is compromised, anything else connected to your home network could be at risk too.

This is an original NIST Cybersecurity Insights blog post, written by Jeff Greene.

Conference calls and web meetings—virtual meetings—are a constant of modern work. And while many of us have become security-conscious in our online interactions, virtual meeting security is often an afterthought, at most. Who hasn’t been finishing one call when attendees of the next call start joining – because the access code is the same? In the moment it may be annoying, or even humorous, but imagine if you were discussing sensitive corporate (or personal) information. Unfortunately, if virtual meetings are not set up correctly, former coworkers, disgruntled employees, or hackers might be able to eavesdrop. Using some basic precautions can help ensure that your meetings are an opportunity to collaborate and work effectively – and not the genesis of a data breach or other embarrassing and costly security or privacy incident.