Protect Your Shared Computer While Remote

Many families today have a shared home computer to help with day-to-day activities. A child has online classes to access for school. A teen can search for jobs and stream shows. A parent needs to check company emails and pay personal bills. With everyone working from home, the shared computer is getting a lot more use and the data is more sensitive to privacy concerns. 

Not every employee was lucky enough to get sent home with a business laptop. Some employers ask you to use your own computer. At the same time, you may also be accommodating for your kids who need to keep up with their online learning.  

Minimize Security Risks

Your shared computer can now present a cybersecurity risk. You may have important work documents on the home computer. You could log in to the business network unaware of malware downloaded onto your home device. Of course, that malicious software isn’t doing your home computer any favors either.  

With the entire family using the computer, make sure to set up virus protection on your home device. Additionally, you may set security patching and software upgrades to happen automatically. One of your young users could be seeing the message requiring an update and ignoring it. That leaves you unaware the software is vulnerable to bugs or threats.  

Set Up Personalized Profiles

Everyone sharing a computer puts your work at risk. You could have downloaded a spreadsheet containing employees personal identification information. That represents a compliance risk if another user accesses the document.  

Or you could lose hours of work. Someone else might drag that project you’ve been working on to the trash with a school assignment rubric. Our IT experts can set up different account profiles for each user. Doing this not only helps to secure your work from home but can also add protection for your kids.  

 The immediate appeal is personalizing the desktop for the individual user. Your kids can pick their own home screen backdrops and menu bars. You may not want a ton of programs clouding your home screen. For smaller children, you can make icons and text bigger. Personalization is a great bonus to adding users.  

Security advantages of these profiles:

• Web filtering enables you to set rules to screen incoming Web pages. This can help avoid children seeing explicit content or accessing a malicious site. You might also limit Web browsing to particular sites.   

   

• App limitations can ban kids from buying and downloading certain apps. For older kids, you could have parental permission first. 

   

• You can set up Screentime limits for particular sites (e.g. Netflix or YouTube). Or allow young people to access online content only at certain hours of the day. 

   

• Age restrictions allow you to filter mature content from search results. These also filter what apps, games, and media the young user can view or buy.  

Individual profiles also make it easier for parents to track online activity. Keeping your work and family safe during this remote environment is critical. Safety should always be top of mind.

Need help ensuring your remote team is secured? Call us at 800-297-8293 

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