Working from home can present its challenges. When working from home employees may not take the proper precautions to secure their network to protect sensitive documents or information. There also may also be issues with connection speeds. We discuss how to optimize your home office network and offer tips on how to make the most of your home office.

Securing every connection is important to not only your personal security but especially to the security of your company as well. VPN’s are how many employees connect to their company’s remote server. A VPN connection is secure from external attacks while connecting the user’s home network to the company’s network. But if your home network isn’t secure and a hacker is able to log in to your home network, there’s a chance they access the VPN and attack your company network.

Always encrypt company data when both storing or sending. One of the simplest ways to secure your home network is to make sure your router is secure. Change your home network’s settings. Not changing the default name and password for your router could make your network an easy target.

Many people are locked down in their homes either working from home, being forced to take a break from work, or going to school, slowing down the network connections. The first thing you should take into consideration is bandwidth. If you are noticing a slow internet connection that could one of the issues. Check with your internet service provider to see what your bandwidth plan you can make a decision on if you need to upgrade it.

You can test the speed of your home network with online speed tests like speedtest.net and fast.com. These speed tests are a good way to check the overall performance of your network.