Using work network and home network safely

[junjun]

Someone at home uses their laptop at workplace and connect to the workplace network and come back home to use the home network.

I heard that work place is a very dangerous place.

How do the rest of the home network user protect themselve from the work PC.

 

[sandravlado]

Hi,
what do you mean 'work place is a very dangerous place'?
I am using my workstation at home without any issues. It can be dangerous, if the security at work is low. But at my company, Security is at the highest possible level (can't even turn on Gtalk, or update stuff to SkyDrive, Skype and facebook forbidden).

but anyway, lets go back to you question: You want to protect your home network from the work PC.
Well, why do you need to use your work PC at home? Just don't use it and that is it. If you need to use it, then scan it with anti-virus software and check if there are any malicious stuff on it.

 

[junjun]

Sorry if I am not clear but I am not the one with the work pc, someone else is the one at home uses it and I can't stop them either.

I do not know the work place security level, if the laptop does not belong to the company but is a personal laptop does the strict security still apply.

 

[sandravlado]

Rules are applying within the corporate network for all devices, no matter if they are workstations, personal laptops, desktop PCs, or mobile phones. BUT, for example in my company, I am not able to plugin my personal laptop to the network, or to connect my mobile phone to the company wireless.
If your roommate is using his/her personal laptop at work, I don't believe it is infected or unsecured, because in that case, he/she would infect the whole office network and would be fired, that is for sure

What do you think this particular laptop is the issue? Did you experience any problems so far?

However, if he/she uses laptop in your home network to download inappropriate material, browse child pornography and so on, he/she could get your network infected at some point.
I am afraid you can't do much here (if you said you tried with a good approach), but to login to your router and disable the access directly on the router for his/her laptop (you can do this by filtering the access via MAC address).

But I believe you two can work things around and make a deal

 

[junjun]

Oh I do not think bad about this particular laptop just that I am worried and since I have worked in places where the security is not very strict thats why I am worried and searching for ways of protection.

I did tried to make things work as best as I can and minimize the inconvince to both of us but I would like for opinion for better protection

 

[Shadowjk]

How big is this company that we are talking about? If it is a large corporate environment with a clear BYOD policy then I would not worry about it at all as stricter security implementations will be taking against personal devices than corporate devices. From the business perspective they are more concerned about the security at home that could bring in harmful applications into the work place.

That being said, if this is a small organisation without a fully implemented IT security policy then you may want to be a bit more cautious though it does not necessarily mean it is a threat.

What exactly are expecting it to cause or threaten?

Josh

 

[junjun]

From what I can gather the company is not big and a portion of the people there are interns. The company does not have enough PC so it requsted for the employees to bring their own if they have.

I am worried that that laptop might spread problem to other PC connected to the home network. I heard things that target company are rather dangerous.