Working Securely from Home

March 24, 2020

While working from home during the COVID-19 situation, it’s important to practice secure remote computing. There are special considerations when working remotely, and when using a personally-owned computer for work.

Working Remotely

When working away from Biola, you need to protect university data from being seen by anyone but you. This isn’t because we don’t trust your family. Rather, Biola has to comply with certain legal and regulatory requirements that require only Biola employees have access to Biola data.

• Your family should not use your work computer.
• Your family should not view sensitive university data on your computer screen (Examples: Protected student information, health information, or business data).
• Make sure your home wireless router is password-protected using a strong passphrase.
• Use VPN when you need to access systems or services that are only available on campus.

Using a Personally-Owned Computer for Work

Biola’s IT department enables security controls on every Biola-owned device. This helps protect Biola in the case of a data breach, or in the case of theft or data loss. As much as possible, try to keep Biola data in systems managed by the University, such as Google Drive. Avoid storing personally-identifiable information (PII) on your personally-owned computer.

If you must use a personally-owned computer for work, you will need to set up these security controls for your device:

• Encrypt your computer’s hard drive.
  • Encrypt your Mac hard drive
  • Encrypt your PC hard drive
• Turn on your antivirus (PC only).
• Keep your OS up to date.
  • How to install Mac updates
  • How to install Windows updates
• Back up your data with Google Drive.

• Create a separate user account only for Biola work.
  • How to create a new user on a PC
  • How to create a new user on a Mac
• Lock your computer down with a passphrase and an automatic screensaver lock.
• Delete any Biola data from your hard drive when you’re done using it.

Some software must not be accessed from a personally-owned computer for any reason, due to compliance requirements and information security risks. These disallowed resources are:

• Banner
• Cognos
• DegreeWorks Admin Tools
• Evisions
• Files server (files.biola.edu)
• Perceptive Content

Thank you for protecting Biola’s data while working from home!