13 cybersecurity tips from F.R.I.E.N.D.S during this pandemic

Medical researchers, leaders and economists are defining this COVID-19 to be a reset button for the world, and a lot of things will be changing post this pandemic. With the United States being the most affected country counting more than 100,000 cases followed by Italy and China, this virus has already brought in a recession into the global economy, and it is mentioned this time the recession will be far worse than 2008. However, with all that pressure, countries are taking a draconian measure to flatten the infection curve and reduce the growth rate of confirmed cases. 

With countries in lock down, most of the employees are working from home. Therefore, the security over their communication, business sensitive data, operations and personal data of the customers may get exposed if the right cybersecurity policies and configurations aren’t in place. In this article, we’ll be seeing thirteen cybersecurity tips that we can learn, understand and develop from the famous F.R.I.E.N.D.S characters during this catastrophe, a more fun way towards understanding the importance of cybersecurity. 

Please note this article is themed around F.R.I.E.N.D.S, so if you haven’t watched the series yet, read this at your own risk.

This American Television show has always made us laugh and kept us occupied during this quarantine lifestyle. Each of those characters in the series have also taught us some cybersecurity tips, that we should follow now as we are working from home. Here we go,

1. Secure your data and insure others understand its importance

Monica Geller has always been very particular about her home, especially the kitchen. She keeps note of the number of vessels, mugs and other utensils, also had them numbered to ensure she has everything in the records. Similarly, security professionals, should understand their quantity of data, scope, and location of storage to ensure proper security measures are in place to protect them from external threats. Even when working from home, security professionals should ensure their peers have the right data security configurations in place to avoid data breaches.

2. Increase your cyber awareness

Though most of us aren’t directly connected to a cybersecurity domain, learning some fundamentals of cybersecurity could help you stay safe against phishing and social engineering scams. Always be aware of your environment and its potential dangerous as Ross had defined it, poses the ‘Unagi’ to stay conscious about your surroundings. Enterprises can run cyber awareness tests, to ensure employees are aware of the threats they could face during this situation.

3. Know your priorities

Phoebe has a weird way of pulling someone’s legs. Moreover, here is a situation when she does one for Ross, and he clearly defines his priorities. Just like Ross, IT departments and technicians should be able to identify their priorities, knowing which devices should be patched, secured and monitored first. Identifying the priorities could be based on criticality of patches or threats, and also based on the users involved.

4. Always remember what is yours

While working from home employees should know what their responsibilities are, how should they address and own it without any followups. When Joey forgets about his passport during his trip to London, Chandler gives him a slight nudge for picking up his passport. If you’ve got a friend like Chandler in your real life, this habit doesn’t apply to you.

5. Show some love to your peers

We all are going through tough times, but that doesn’t mean we have to be self-centered about ourselves. Being supportive to our peers by showing some love like Joey, asking about their well-being, aiding them from an IT perspective, troubleshooting their devices and resolving their problems is an optimistic and bright gesture during this calamity.

6. Team work and knowledge sharing

This crisis demands moral support, and that’s why employees should work as a team now. Working as a team can keep ourselves occupied and give a normal life during this quarantine. Be like Chandler, always be there for your friend, share your knowledge, work as a team, improve your productivity, keep yourselves occupied and motivated.

7. Define unique passwords

Start defining unique passwords to different accounts, if in case you are using same passwords for Facebook, Linkedin, Official accounts and more. Please start redefining the passwords like Rachel and Ross, when they called it the ‘Unagi’ and ‘Salmon skin roll’. Unique passwords can help your accounts to be saved even if one of your passwords is compromised by phishing scams.

8. Know your strength

Analyzing your network strengths can facilitate technicians in deploying the required security configurations to the devices. If your network already owns the right firewall management, endpoint management, log management, help desk software and more such security applications, ensuring they are configured correctly can become the strengths of your enterprise. Always know your strength like Chandler, and be proud of it.

9. Do not share your personal data

With more data protection laws in force, organizations should establish the right personal data management measures. Just like Joey, the organization should not share what is theirs (data) with third part vendors. Data collection, consumption and deletion should be owned by the organization itself. Define your privacy policies and follow it strictly.

10. Never forget to notice everything

Any simple information of the network can be of great help to technicians. Always keep a note on your dashboard, customize them as per your preference but never forget to notice everything. Be like Monica, when something goes wrong or misplaced identify it immediately and act on it. Assume it could be a traffic overload or vulnerability fix, notice it and resolve it as soon as possible. If not a permanent fix, a temporary but immediate action would be sufficient to keep your security intact.

11. Avoid unnecessary surprises

Proactive cybersecurity can keep your network safe from malicious actors. Defining an automated patching procedures, auditing and reporting of critical vulnerabilities, device management, and VPN deployments can actually reduce the probability of becoming victim to cyberattacks. Without the right proactive measures, enterprises may become like Janice, prolonged, annoying and weird.

12. Master the reactive cybersecurity

Proactive security can be beneficial but not all attacks can be defended, few get past even our best defenses and that’s why enterprises need to adopt a reactive cybersecurity strategies and avoid becoming stunned like Joey. Reactive applications like SIEM, log management, DDOS scrubbers, endpoint security, and more can come handy during the aftermath of an attack. Everything before the attack may appear to be no so frightening, but in the climax it is long way from being safe.

13. Became a victim? Got breached? Move on!

With large volumes of phishing campaigns being tracked during this pandemic, it is good to practice all the above mentioned cyber habits to keep ourselves secured and saved from cyber criminals. We can’t be immune to all the hack attempts, if you or your enterprise becomes victim to one of these attacks, then wear it as an armour and move on like Ross’s ‘Fine by me’. Take the responsibility for poor security, accept what went wrong and inform your customers and the data security attorneys about the data breach before the deadline, as mentioned in the respective data protection laws. 

Yes there would be deterioration in brand image, financial loss and more. However, disclosing the data breach in time could mean you are a responsible and transparent entity.

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