Protecting your data, your devices, and your family

Your home is more connected than ever. Think about which devices in your home are connecting to the internet. Laptops, tablets, and gaming consoles probably come to mind. But your home has many more connected devices than you might realize. Smart light bulbs, your television, doorbells, and even many of our refrigerators and microwaves connect to the internet daily. This makes your home cybersecurity and networking more important than ever before.

Every time you and your data send and receive information on your network, it is at risk of being stolen by hackers. This risk has only been amplified in recent years. Since the pandemic, more people are working from home than ever before. Companies are realizing that much of their data is being run through their employees’ home networks, and the need for cybersecurity in the home has become as important as in the corporate office.

According to Pew Research, roughly six-in-ten US workers who say their jobs can mainly be done from home (59%) are working from home all or most of the time.*

What are VLANs?

TSP is one of the first companies offering true cybersecurity protection for homeowners, tying back to our roots in IT services.

We have protected our business and enterprise clients for 30 years and have been around since before cybersecurity was even a thing. Most cyber attacks happen because someone falls for a phishing attack or clicks a link to download malware.

In a normal home network, all devices are on the same segment, allowing traffic to flow freely from device to device without restriction. The risk is that a successful intrusion to the network – no matter how small – now exposes all devices across your entire network to that attack.

For smaller networks, that risk might be acceptable, especially at home. But many of our client’s risk profile is a lot higher. They are working from home more than 50% of the time, running companies, and doing transactions worth five figures (or more) when they’re at work.

Businesses learned long ago that the risk of a small cyberattack becoming a business-disrupting event was too great not to protect themselves. Post-pandemic, homeowners are also worried about the risk of cyber attacks, and rightly so.

The protection against this type of cyber attack comes in two forms – first, the more traditional Firewall protects against many kinds of threats from the outside. But it isn’t enough to assume that firewalls will be 100% effective. After all, we all have houseguests, and who doesn’t provide their guests with Wifi? So what’s stopping an infected laptop from joining your network and causing further havoc – that’s where the second layer of protection comes in: Network Segmentation.

Properly designed networks have multiple “VLANs” (Virtual Local Area Networks) to help protect different classes of devices. These enable groups of devices connected to your network to be partitioned into separate networks. For example, your AV and smart devices will connect to a different network than your work laptop. This provides an added layer of network security. Your critical work devices live on a different network from your IoT devices, which are much more vulnerable to attack. This ensures that when there is a breach, the damage can be contained to one part of your network, not your entire system. 

An improperly configured IoT device can be hacked in as little as five minutes, according to NETSCOUT’s Threat Intelligence Report.

Here are some simple tips you can do to help keep you and your family safe:

The right equipment.

Even though your ISP (internet service provider) can provide the networking equipment you need to get online, a consumer-grade router just isn’t going to provide you with the security or coverage you need for your home. This doesn’t always mean you have to break the bank. Meraki has affordable options such as the Meraki Go line, perfect for smaller residential settings.

We have been working with Cisco Meraki for over 18 years – back to Meraki’s MIT roots. It’s the leader in cloud-managed networks and infrastructure cybersecurity, and we’re the only home automation company in Boston that installs Cisco as its first choice. That’s because Cisco Meraki equipment is enterprise-class, requiring training and certification in network design and cybersecurity to install it. And since networking and cybersecurity are in our DNA, we’re the Cisco Meraki experts in Boston. 

Not only is Meraki backed by enterprise security heavyweight Cisco, but it’s also used by some of the most cyber secure organizations in the world, including the Boston Celtics, Accel, and MIT. We install only the best network protection for our customers, ensuring their digital security is as safe as their physical security.

Are you interested to learn more about your smart home, its network, and cybersecurity? Contact us today!