10 Home and Office Cyber Security Best Practices

Adopting best practices for cyber security in the office and when working remotely can protect businesses of all sizes from costly data breaches and information theft.

The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025 found that 43% of UK businesses experienced a cyber security attach or breach in the preceding 12 months, equivalent to about 612,000 firms nationwide.

This is down from 50% in the previous year, a drop driven by businesses adopting best practices in cyber security. Some of the precautions taken by British businesses in 2024 included:

• Cyber security risk assessments (48%)
• Cyber security business continuity plans (53%)
• Cyber security workplace policies (59%)

We have put together this top 10 cyber security checklist that office workers can follow to better protect data, passwords and backups against would-be threats, as well as to improve cyber security at home for hybrid workers.

Cyber Security in 2026

The fall in breaches in 2024-25 should not be seen as a drop in danger. Instead, it is a sign of better preparedness among UK businesses of all sizes, which in turn is translating into fewer successful cyber attacks.

In order to continue this trend in 2026, firms need to address the remaining disparities in cyber security policies. For example, 76% of the UK’s largest businesses run training sessions to improve awareness of cyber security tips for employees, but this figure drops to just 19% when SMEs are included. (Source: DSIT)

Our list of workplace and home cyber security tips covers ten of the most important issues you can address to protect your data, regardless of the size of your organisation.

Top 10 Cyber Security Best Practices 2026

Below is our cyber security checklist office workers can follow to defend against cyber attacks in 2026 and beyond.

While this list is in no particular order, these are ten of the biggest, most commonly encountered cyber threats, making them the best place to start when planning training on cyber security tips for employees and remote workers.

1. Strong and unique passwords

Weak and duplicated passwords are commonplace among office-based and home workers alike, and they’re still a threat to business cyber security. Nearly three quarters (73%) of UK businesses now have password policies in place to tackle this. (Source: DSIT)

Ideally, passwords should be:

• Strong: Combine letters, numbers and punctuation to make passwords harder to crack using brute-force methods.
• Unique: Avoid using the same password on multiple platforms, so a single breach cannot compromise other systems.
• Private: Do not write down or share passwords, especially in places where they could be found by unauthorised individuals.

Regularly changing passwords – and preventing reuse of old passwords – is also worth considering, as this can proactively prevent access using old leaked or hacked passwords. For more tips on password management, check out our guide here.

2. Multi-factor authentication

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) requires the use of two or more forms of authentication to log in. The most basic version of this is two-factor authentication, sometimes written as 2FA.

An example of this is when logging onto internet banking. You may have a username, a password, a PIN, a security question and/or a unique login code generated by a key fob or banking app.

Only 40% of businesses are using this kind of approach as of the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025, making this an area where the majority could do better. (Source: DSIT)

3. Keep devices up to date

Updating devices is one of the easiest ways to improve cyber security at home and in the workplace. Many updates and software patches are released to close newly identified security vulnerabilities, so it’s important to install them as soon as possible.

Automatic updates remove the burden of remembering to do this. Updates can be scheduled to download in the background at off-peak times and install overnight.

In many cases, modern computers can reboot to the exact same state – including any open programs and unsaved work – although it’s always a good idea to save documents to the cloud in real-time as you work on them.

4. Adopt email common sense

The old combination of ‘scams and spams’ is still one of the most important target points for workplace and home security tips in 2026. Phishing attacks – including fraudulent emails and attempts to make employees access fraudulent websites – were reported by 85% of UK businesses that experienced a cyber attack in 2024-25. (Source: DSIT)

Yet only 55% of businesses have a process in place for staff to follow when they receive a phishing attack. Again, this makes phishing awareness training and clear anti-phishing policies a good prospect when auditing cyber security in the office.

A sensible tip to follow is the five-second rule: Before opening an email attachment, clicking a link or replying to an unfamiliar address, stop for five seconds to consider whether you trust the sender, and to look for anything suspicious like poor spellings and grammar, high-risk attachments like .exe files, and to check the destination URL of hyperlinks.

5. Improve Wi-Fi hygiene

Wireless networks are convenient, but they pose unique risks to cyber security. Three of the biggest threats to tackle include:

1. Employees connecting work devices to public Wi-Fi
2. Employees connecting their own devices to workplace Wi-Fi
3. Members of the public connecting to workplace Wi-Fi

In general, if you want to provide wireless internet access to visitors, you should have a second public connection in place. Keep your private workplace network for authorised personnel only.

The DSIT survey found that just 33% of UK businesses have a separate visitor network, while only 31% require the use of a VPN (virtual private network) to improve cyber security at home for remote workers.

6. Away-from-screen rules

We all need a coffee or bathroom break from time to time, but those ‘AFK’ (away from keyboard) moments can be some of the biggest short-term threats to cyber security in the office, as many employees do not lock their workstation when they step away.

This is a good issue to raise in employee cyber security training, as it’s something that can be improved via a culture of security awareness. Timeout tools that automatically lock the screen after a certain period of inactivity can also help.

Make sure employees don’t have access to change the settings on these – even if you instil the importance of security during away-from-screen times, some will try to deactivate the screensaver or standby setting rather than retype their password when they return.

7. Separating work & personal use

Maintaining separation between professional and personal use of devices is best practice and again, something you can include in home cyber security tips for remote workers, who may be more likely to use their personal laptop for work.

A good way to improve cyber security at home without using completely separate devices is to create an additional user account for work purposes. This can comply with workplace password policies, email security and other precautions.

Having separate accounts or devices for business use can also boost productivity, by reducing employees’ access to the distractions (e.g. apps and bookmarked websites) that may be found throughout their personal devices.

8. Secure backups & cloud storage

Fast wireless internet means there’s no reason why your data should be stored locally on devices that could be lost, stolen, damaged or destroyed. Set up secure online backups, ideally in real-time but at least on a daily basis, for all critical data.

This protects you against cyber attacks and other threats to business continuity:

• If data is encrypted during a ransomware attack, you can restore a clean recent backup.
• If data is erased by mistake or malicious act, you have a backup available on the cloud.
• If data/devices are destroyed in a home or office fire or flood, you can restore the file system and continue from a remote location.

Nearly all medium-to-large businesses surveyed by DSIT in 2024-25 had data backups in place, accounting for 96% of respondents. This technology is affordable to small businesses in 2026 – if you’re not backing up data to the cloud, make this your year to catch up!

9. AI scams awareness

The risk of cyber AI scams is growing at a rapid pace, and should feature on any cyber security checklist office workers are asked to follow.

AI can analyse vast quantities of data to identify vulnerabilities and to mimic specific phrasing used by real-life individuals when attempting to impersonate them. In extreme cases, AI-generated photographs and even videos (with audio) can be used to add to the realism of a scam.

Phishing – already the single most prevalent form of cyber security attack – is finding a new lease of life due to the potential to incorporate AI into phishing attempts. Employee awareness is crucial to combating this, along with creative techniques like the use of ‘safe words’ and other analogue authentication methods that are never typed into the network.

10. Reporting suspicious activity

Perhaps the most important of our cyber security tips for employees is to report suspected incidents, whether or not a breach has occurred. A lack of reporting is one of the biggest risks to cyber security in the office.

This can be difficult for management, because it requires a blame-free culture. Employees, both on-site and at-home, should be empowered to protect business data against theft or compromise, but if an incident slips through the net, they MUST feel able to report it.

Appropriate disciplinary action and/or re-training can follow at a later date, but in the first instance the most important response is to mitigate the breach, secure your systems and comply with any reporting requirements by your industry regulator or ICO.

Start With a Cyber Security Health Check

By focusing on the issues raised in this Cyber Security Checklist office workers can become more vigilant, while taking sensible steps to safeguard systems against cyber attacks, both at work and at home.

For a detailed list of recommendations based on your existing systems and safeguards, schedule your Cyber Security Health Check today.

Our experts will review your policies on everything from passwords and MFA, to AI and email awareness, to give you a list of best practice recommendations that will help to keep your business network safe from emerging threats in 2026 and beyond.