What Commercial is?

Commercial confidentiality refers to the protection of the privacy of individual firms’ sensitive information, such as market position, financial health, etc.

Failure to secure private business information can lead to loss of business and/or clients. Confidential information can be misused to commit illegal activities, like fraud, which can result to filing of lawsuit on the end of the client. Moreover, losing or disclosing private business information can cause distrust on the individual entrusted with the information.

Check this topic related to securing commercial confidentiality: Keeping Commercial Information Confidential When Working from Home. Otherwise, proceed to the next topic to learn more about proper measures to take when working in public.

Proper Precautions When Working in Public Using Public Internet

Due to infrequent but inevitable circumstances, i.e. intermittent or completely disconnected internet connection, remote workers are forced to leave home to find public internet connection they can connect to.

Unfortunately, public internets are unsecured, and connecting to it makes your device, including your data and information, prone to breaches.

Here are some measures to take to maintain confidentiality and secure your data and information even when working using public internet.

1. Beware of phishing sites.
2. Beware of phishing emails or business email compromise.
3. Refrain from opening unexpected attachments from both known and from unknown sources.
4. Be careful when downloading and/or installing applications or software (even if it is for work-related purposes).

Below are some other information that can help you:

• tell if your device has been compromised;
• be aware of social media and email phishing site traps and how to rid of such sites; and
• protect your data and information in simple ways.

Signs that your smart devices or computer is compromised

• Frequent pop-up windows, especially the ones that encourage you to visit unusual sites, or download antivirus or other software
• Changes to your home page settings and view
• Mass emails or spam being sent from your personal or corporate email account
• Frequent crashes or unusually slow computer performance (during work, or slow start-up login)
• Unknown programs that startup when you start your computer
• Programs automatically connecting to the Internet
• Unusual activities like password changes

Social Media and Email Phishing Traps

It is common to see advertisements on social media based on your browsing history or cookie settings. You might have seen images like these:

These platforms will open a new browser to collect information from your computer. The website will ask innocuous questions like a normal survey. However, these questions have algorithms to profile your account in their database. You must avoid clicking these websites or responding to emails, especially directly from your email or social media accounts, because you allow these phishing sites to collect your data discreetly.

Here are tips to remove these phishing websites. You may also read more about the Viruses and Malware topic for more information.

1. Check your Spam email and unsubscribe to unfamiliar websites. Normally, the email contains an unsubscribe button to prevent them from sending you an email.
2. Clear your history and cookie settings. You can check these help desk links for your browsers.

• • Google Chrome
  • Firefox
  • Opera

1. Change your email passwords ASAP.
2. Use search engines that do not collect personalized search result such as DuckDuckGo.
3. Customize your computer and browser firewalls. There are tons of online tutorials and videos to configure your firewall.

1. 1. Google Chrome
   2. FireFox
   3. Opera
   4. Windows
   5. MAC OS

With the internet constantly feeding us free software, apps, and open-source websites, it is difficult to be vigilant of our internet habits. Overall, the security risks heavily rely on our browsing behavior.

Protecting documents or emails with passwords

It is important to set the security and limit access to confidential documents in your company, especially in a remote setting. You can check the Collaboration Tools module to know more about the security functions of online storage.

For emails and documents, there are occasions that you need to encrypt them with passwords known only to intended recipients. Use these seamless integrations to secure your remote work communications.

For Windows

For Mac OS

There are also options to encrypt email messages (on Outlook) with passwords using this website.

For Gmail accounts, you can add security to your email messages using this link.

Encrypting and configuring passwords for confidential documents can be an additional task, but it assures you to avoid being compromised affecting your work integrity.

Syncing Phone and Computer

It is essential to sync drives of your computer when you are working outside your home office. Although there are security measures to follow when using a different phone or computer.

Here are some useful links about how to safely sync your documents to your phone/computer:

• Windows 10
• Google Sync (Mobile Phone and Gmail through other email platforms)
• Apple Devices
• Apple Airdrop
• One Drive Setting

Workplace security settings and practice can be painstaking, but dealing with security breaches are more critical and expensive. As a remote worker, it is your primary duty to protect yourself and your clients when handling confidential documents.