At home, security incidents don’t look like dramatic movie hacks. They can be something as simple as stepping away from your laptop to take a delivery, or leaving it unlocked while you grab something quickly from another room.
Those ordinary moments, repeated over time, are how work devices end up exposed.
A remote working security checklist focuses on simple, practical controls that hold up in real life. Put it in place once, make it routine, and you’ll prevent the kinds of issues that hurt most because they were entirely avoidable.
Why home is a different security environment
A work laptop doesn’t magically become less secure at home, but the environment around it does.
In the office, there are built-in boundaries: fewer shared users, fewer casual touchpoints, and more predictable networks. At home, that same laptop is suddenly operating in a space designed for convenience, not control.
For starters, physical exposure rises. At home, devices move from room to room, sit on tables and countertops, and are left unattended for short stretches throughout the day.
Home is also where work and personal life collide, and that creates messy, very human risks. That’s why a remote work security checklist must treat physical security as part of cyber security.
Basics like keeping devices secured, limiting access and locking them when you’re not using them are simple habits that matter even more at home, because there’s no ‘office culture’ quietly enforcing them.
CISA’s guidance on connecting a new computer to the internet also offers the baseline steps many people skip at home: secure your router or enable the firewall, use anti-virus, and remove unnecessary software and default features.
Finally, remote access raises the stakes for identity. In its remote workforce security guidance, Microsoft’s best practices frames remote security around a Zero Trust approach and emphasises that access should be strongly authenticated and checked for anomalies before it’s granted.
The checklist
So, here’s a simple remote working security checklist. Use this as your ‘minimum standard’ for company laptops at home. It’s designed to be practical, repeatable, and easy to enforce without turning everyone into part-time IT employees.
Lock the screen every time you step away
Set a short auto-lock timer and get into the habit of locking manually, even at home.
Store the laptop as if it’s valuable
Assume that ‘out of sight’ is safer than ‘out of the way.’ When you’re finished, store your device somewhere protected, not on the sofa, not on the kitchen table, and never in the car.
Don’t share work laptops with family
At home, good intentions can still lead to accidental clicks. Even a quick “just checking something” can result in risky downloads, unfamiliar logins, or unwanted browser extensions. The NI Cyber Security Centre is blunt about it: don’t let other people use your work device and don’t treat it like the family laptop.
Use a strong sign-in and MFA
Use a long passphrase, not a clever but short password, and never reuse it across accounts. Treat multifactor authentication (MFA) as a baseline requirement, not a nice extra.
Stop using devices that can’t update
If a laptop can’t receive security updates, it’s not a work device. It’s a risk.
Patch fast
Updates are where most known issues get fixed. The longer you wait, the bigger the risk. Enable automatic updates and restart when prompted.
Use the firewall and keep security tools switched on
Turn on your firewall, keep antivirus software active, and make sure both are properly configured. If security tools feel inconvenient, don’t switch them off, address the friction instead.
Remove unnecessary software
The more apps you install, the more updates you have to manage, and the more opportunities there are for something to go wrong. Remove software you don’t need, disable unnecessary default features, and stick to approved applications from trusted sources.
Keep work data in work storage
Storing work data in approved systems keeps access controlled, audit-ready, and much easier to recover if something goes wrong. Avoid saving work documents to personal cloud accounts or personal backup services.
Be wary of unexpected links and attachments
If a message pressures you to click, open, download, or “confirm now,” treat it as suspicious. When in doubt, verify the request through a separate, trusted channel before taking any action.
Only allow access from ‘healthy devices’
The safest remote setups gate access based on device health. Microsoft warns that unmanaged devices can be a powerful entry point and stresses the importance of allowing access only from healthy devices.
Are your laptops ‘home-proof’?
If you want remote work to remain seamless, your devices need to be home-proof by default.
That means treating the fundamentals as non-negotiable: automatic screen locks, secure storage, protected sign-ins, timely updates, properly secured Wi-Fi, and work data stored only in approved locations.
Nothing complicated, just consistent execution.
Start by adopting this remote work security checklist as your baseline standard – but then work towards installing robust and proper IT Policies and procedures, with as much automation as possible. When the defaults are strong, you reduce avoidable incidents without slowing anyone down.
And don’t forget – you need to ensure your staff are safe themselves. That means adopting ‘lone worker’ protocols and adhering to all the health and safety guidance for equipment and desk set up that you implement in the office.
Need a little help?
If you’d like help turning these basics into a practical, enforceable remote work policy, just get in touch. We can help get home workers set up, supply robust, ready-written policies for staff to adopt and can help you standardise protections across your team, to keep remote working productive and secure.
Reach us on 01223 903 800, hello@grace.solutions, or book a call online with one of our top techs: https://calendly.com/hello-gsl/mtg-25min
We’re here to help.
Base article used with permission from The Technology Press.