Many families today have a shared home computer to help with all their normal day-to-day activities. A teen can do school work, play games and chat to friends, a parent can check work emails, pay household bills and shop online while the youngsters play some games and browse YouTube. Yet with COVID-19 sending so many people home to work, the shared computer is getting a lot more use and is now also being used for business or corporate work.

Depending upon your employment and their situation you may not be lucky enough to sent home with a business laptop and have to use your own computer or laptop. At the same time, you may also be accommodating everyone else wanting to use the computer and / or your internet connection.

Sharing the computer though, presents a security risk – you may now have important and confidential work documents on the home computer. Connecting via a VPN also opens the door for a virus on your computer (or on the work network) to move across and effect other computers.

The first things to do are make sure you have up to date security software installed and you have installed and updated your Windows and other main software packages to the latest versions.

Setting Up Personal Profiles

With everyone sharing the same desktop and user profile, your work is at risk. You may be working on a confidential document which another person at your home may access or delete. Depending on you industry and its compliance regulations this can leave you and your employer at serious risk.

Our IT experts can set up different account profiles for each user. Doing this not only helps to secure your work from home, but can also adds extra protection for the other users.

The immediate appeal is personalising the desktop for each individual user. Your kids can pick their own home screen backdrops and menu bars. You might not need access to TikTok, but your teen is thrilled to have it right there on the desktop. For smaller children, you can make icons and text bigger.

For parents, security advantages of the profiles include:

• Web filtering. This enables you to set rules to screen incoming Web pages. This can help avoid children seeing explicit content or accessing a malicious site. You might also limit Web browsing to particular times and categories.
• App limitations. You can ban the kids from buying and downloading certain apps or making in-app purchases. For older kids you could require parental permission first for certain actions.
• Screen time limits. You can limit the amount of time the users spend on the computer or only access during certain hours of the day.
• Age restrictions. This allows you to filter mature content from search results. These also filter what apps, games and media the young user can view or buy.

Individual profiles also make it easier for parents to track computer usage and online activity. We can even set up reports on web browsing and application usage.

Secure your work from home environment and protect your family of users and also your employer. Get help setting up the right controls for your home computer needs. If you are located in or around Adelaide, South Australia then contact us today!