Protecting Your Home Office

Running a home business, or freelancing from home can be an incredibly enjoyable experience. You get to work your own hours, travel when you want to – and really create the life of your dreams. 

But what steps are you taking to protect the stock, equipment, and area that you work in? And how secure is the information that you send over the internet? 

Technically speaking, we could all do a little more to protect our home office and our business.  So here are a few ways to make sure that you are covered – should anything happen. 

Electrical items

If you have a laptop, a desktop, and a mobile phone that you use for work – are they insured? 

Sometimes without notice, our laptops or desktops can break – and when they do, if you don’t have insurance then you will need to pay the lump sum for a new one. 

This isn’t worth the risk. Just like you have a home warranty for the rest of the electric items in your home, you need protection for these items too. 

As a side note: it is important that you have everything backed up on toa HDD or a cloud – just in case something does go wrong with your desktop or laptop. 

VPN

When people hear the words virtual private network, it isn’t uncommon for them to stop listening. At face value, it can seem like something that is complicated to set up, too technical, or a waste of money (because surely your small business doesn’t need this level of protection). 

But actually, setting up a VPN takes a matter of seconds and offers an unrivaled layer of protection. 

A VPN can be used with your current WiFi and will not impact the speed of your internet – what it will do is ensure that any information you send with the VPN is protected and is encrypted. 

What’s more, is that if you find yourself unable to reach some websites due to the geographical location, you can change your VPN’s country setting to reach it. 

Shredding

If you still use a lot of paper, then starting to shred those files at least once a week is important. 

Although almost everyone works on the internet, and most importantly, work will be saved in virtual space, there are some documents that are printed. 

Once you no longer need these documents, it is a good idea to shred them. 

Any of these printed or saved files could have information that identity thieves can use. Throwing these in the bin isn’t the best idea. Not only will they have your information on, but depending on the type of paperwork – it might have clients’ information. 

Physically Secure

If you live on the ground floor, or your office is on the ground floor, then you should take steps to secure any machines to their location. 

Printers and desktops can be secured to a table, making them more challenging to remove in the case of a break-in. 

And while it might not be aesthetically pleasing, bars on the window can offer an incredible layer of protection against criminals. 

Passwords

If you haven’t got a password on your laptop, tablet, and mobile phone, then you are leaving a lot of information easily accessible. 

Take a look at everything you have access to once you open the lid of your laptop or swipe on your phone. 

Emails, banking applications, medical applications, social media accounts, and so much more are instantly accessible. 

Without the first layer of protection, everything about you, your business, and your customers are some documents that are easy to access. 

Since most people save their passwords using KeyChain on an Apple device or Google’s save password option, it wouldn’t take long before someone could access everything about you. 

The idea itself is scary, so always make sure you have the first barrier up. 

Entry points

Depending on your home office location, it might be a good idea to have an extra physical lock attached to the door. It doesn’t matter if you are a blogger or a multibillion-dollar business owner – you should have the highest level of protection for your working area. 

A simple bolt and padlock can be enough to keep the room secure, or you may opt to install smart locks on the doors. A smart lock is very safe and comes with a code for unlocking. It can also be opened automatically at designated intervals throughout the day. 

Looking after your home office is looking after your business and no matter what stage of your business you are in – it is essential to treat all of the information you send as the highest priority. 

Turning your office into the best workspace around? Check out: 7 Hacks To Making Your Office Space More Productive