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CPA Firms Data Cloud Protection

How CPA Firms Benefit from Miami Data Protection

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All CPA firms have sensitive data that should they fall into the hands of cyber attackers, would be a disaster for their business. It could be anything from important personal files and client data, to product information and financial transactions. For that reason, data protection should be a serious consideration for any company. Proper data protection with managed services should guard your firm’s data while making it available to employees who need it. Moreover, it should ensure the data remains confidential, especially due to the possible security threat of remote workers operating on non-compliant company devices.

Data is currently the lifeblood of a business. That is why Facebook and Google became the tech giants they are today. The amount of data they have over their users is so valuable, industries depended on them to drive business, develop relationships and predict behaviors.

Imagine if that data were stolen and used for nefarious purposes. Imagine if it were sold on the black market or bought by a third party. You don’t have to be Facebook or Google to appreciate the severity of a situation like this. If your industry fails to protect both client and employee data, this could destroy your business.

Customers have a minimum expectation that your firm or business will keep that data safe. Data governance builds trust and trust builds a business. There are practices that everyone needs to follow to protect important data from breach.

Now more than ever, you find data hacks and attackers everywhere online. 53 percent of companies experienced a cyber-attack in the last year. This was up from 38 percent the previous year. This is why finding the right services that offer data protection in Miami is a good idea. Ransomware and hackers in particular are hitting accounting, the financial services industry and even educational companies all over the world.

Data protection keeps hackers from taking advantage of human errors

Whether you like it or not, human errors can appear from time to time in just about any business. And yes, they can lead to lots of downtime. Hackers will wait for such an error to appear and they will immediately gain access to your business information. If you don’t store your information adequately, hackers will just attack your business, and that can lead to a huge set of problems in the long term.

Training

This is such a huge issue that government regulations are now in place that make data governance a requirement. An important component of safety measures is security awareness training. Employees need to understand the importance of data security and procedures.

Online Safety

Our online activities reveal aspects of our daily life. What we search, where we enter our names, home address, and phone numbers. Facts about our education, our shopping habits, all of these things are recorded on the internet.

The amount of information that can be found on the internet is staggering. People expose their private lives online on a regular basis and that means these details can be exploited to gain access to employee information at work.

Data protection keeps hackers from taking advantage of human errors.  There are three main human errors that cyber attackers leverage to gain sensitive data:

Error 1: Phishing

Phishing and pretexting account for 93 percent of social related breaches, and email attacks are the most common.
The biggest mistake companies make is to neglect cyber until an attack or breach occurs. What every financial organization, accounting firm, and any business with sensitive data needs to do is create a security focused culture. Taking the time to address important warnings and issues in brief meetings or short five minute videos can give your business a huge advantage over cyber criminals.

Error 2: Poor passwords

81 percent of company data breaches are due to weak passwords. That’s because people recycle the same passwords across their various online accounts. Not only do people use the same passwords, but they continue to use those passwords as long as possible until it they’re told to change it by an IT department or affected by a cyber-attack. Businesses need to take an active role in helping their staff develop password good password hygiene. The reason many people use reuse these passwords are fear of forgetting. In fact, it was the number one reason for reuse. 61 percent of users admitted this in a poll by Lastpass.

There are password manager software applications that collect data and store it in encrypted databases. Nerds Support uses password expiration tools that instructs users to change their password every 30 days.

Error 3: Unauthorized access to devices

Although  industries  have become more mobile through smartphone technology, tablets and laptops, companies still issue devices to their employees. Over half of working adults allow friends and family to access employer-issued devices at home. Furthermore, it’s possible for employees to download malware that could gain access to important data and applications.
Implementing security controls on devices like two factor authentication and password protection is necessary in this case to avoid these risks. Also, introducing a thorough and comprehensive information security plan that addresses such concerns will lead to a more cyber secure culture within the workplace.

This is especially important for accounting firms due to the sensitive nature of their data. Financial firms are also vulnerable to these types of human error and critically impact the business. Nerd Support’s cloud accounting technology mitigates these risks by implementing rigid compliance centered practices.

Data protection Safeguards Against Breaches

Daily data backups, storing your data in an undisclosed location and taking the security measures mentioned above can go a long way. Data protection needs to be a top priority for all industries, because not only will you lose data, you’ll lose trust and eventually clients.

 

CPA Firms Data Protection Statistics

 

Daily data backups, storing your data in an undisclosed location and taking the security measures mentioned above can go a long way. Data protection needs to be a top priority for all industries, because not only will you lose data, you’ll lose trust and eventually clients.

Data Protection saves you money

The average total cost of a data breach is 3.92 million US dollars, according to extensive study by the Ponemon Institute. The average size of that data breach is 25, 575 records. In other words, 25,575 records are stolen on average whenever there is a data breach. Having strong protections is not a luxury, it’s a necessary investment. Most companies don’t realize this until a breach has taken place. The true financial impact is immeasurable when you consider future losses due loss of trust, credibility as well as the fines and fees.

Data protection keeps your company in compliance with the law

All businesses must safeguard their data. In Florida it’s important to remain compliant with the Florida information protection act of 2014. It’s a lot easier to avoid any potential lawsuits this way too. And, the most important thing, this way you can create powerful business relationships with each client.

By following compliance standards many of the vulnerabilities associated with human error are eliminated entirely. So you need to find IT solutions that take compliance not only into consideration but make compliance the basis for those solutions.

For accounting, it’s GAAP compliance standards that should be met. In the case of financial services, using FINRA approved cloud storage services is key.

What Happens When Data Protection is Underestimated?

There were huge data breaches in government run facilities in the past year. Ecuador was victim to a data breach that compromised the information of up to 20 million people. This included adults and children, dead and alive. To give you a sense of scale, Ecuador has a population of 16 million people. These attacks are only getting worse as hackers expose long neglected security weaknesses.

If you want to make sure that your company data is safe, contact Nerds Support for more information. Our dedicated data protection services team can give you a free consultation to discuss your industry and compliance needs.

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Financial cloud Industry Digitizing with the Cloud

Financial Cloud for the Financial Services Industry

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Cloud for Financial Services Industry

Financial cloud services is an evermore popular topic these days, especially with the rising necessity of remote work options. Financial services organizations are moving to the cloud for a competitive advantage, advanced security and the potential for innovation. The global finance cloud market was valued at more than $15 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach about $55 billion by 2024, according to report by Mordor Intelligence.

One of the driving factors in cloud finance is operational efficiency. Moreover, by using the cloud, companies are able to offer end-to-end loan processing in record time, surpassing finance industry benchmarks.

Finance and asset management is undergoing a radical transformation. Four out of five organizations that participated in a Bizagi report say that providing a better customer experience that can respond to customer needs enables competitive advantage.

Digital Transformation

Companies continue to explore the cloud for financial services and its benefits. Additionally, cloud software provides companies the ability to focus on revenue and wealth management, while maintaining customer relations.

CSPs arose as a leaders in the digital transformation of various industries. These industries like retail and distribution represent sectors with medium to low regulatory oversight. This reduces some of the complexities associated with implementation.

However, adopting the cloud for highly regulated industries like banks, insurance and healthcare companies did not follow this trend. CSPs lacked the maturity to meet financial organizations’ regulatory and compliance requirements. But this has changed in recent years, with cloud adoption increasing within the industry according to a Gartner study.

Both the banking and insurance industries are adopting cloud services. The study also states that by 2020, 36 percent of institutions will use the cloud to support more than half of their transactional systems of record.

Regulations and Standards

The entry way to the cloud does have its challenges and it’s important to understand the full picture. Those who work in an industry as heavily regulated as that of financial services don’t need  reminders of their importance. There’s an expectation that Financial services organizations protect sensitive data and are subject to strict data security requirements. Data protection, business continuity, data privacy are considered when outsourcing their infrastructure over to a cloud service provider.

Financial services are among the most regulated industries with regards to data privacy and security. There’s a long list of regulations that include: PCI, DSS, GLBA, GDPR, Dodd-Frank, FFIEC, SOX and the USA Patriot Act.

Reluctance to Adopt the Cloud

With 71 percent of financial service businesses agreeing that digital transformation needs to happen fast in order to prevent commercial failure, what problems stop these companies from committing to the cloud?

In a survey released in March 2015, the majority of participants cited data security as their primary concern, with application development and testing being their primary desire of utilizing the cloud.Financial Industry Respondents Statistics on Digitizing with the Cloud

Reasons to Adopt the Financial Cloud

Despite those concerns, the reality is financial cloud security is actually an upgrade, and actually deter or remove any potential risks to data. A cloud provider uses top grade security features and a team of highly skilled systems engineers that monitor suspicious activity around-the-clock. Cloud service providers (CSP) , like our IT Support for Financial firms also implement automated backups every day to reduce risk of data loss in case of a breach. The cloud is better than traditional systems with security. Using pattern matching technology to recognize anomalies when they appear, cloud providers prevent risks rather than create it.

CSPs are extremely secure and have redundancies in place. Regardless, it’s up to each financial institution to understand what they are buying from a CSP, the type of risks associated with the service provided, and the regulatory requirements. For example, depending on the importance of a FI’s service and the sensitivity of their data, the FI can choose the level of encryption. Passwords and encryption keys can be managed in various ways; some CSPs, like Nerds Support, offer additional services like “security as a service.”

Some CSP’s, like Nerds Support, take the added step of achieving compliance with HIPAA and PCI DSS regulations. In doing so they show the capacity to meet stringent security requirements, enabling customers to leverage security capabilities to meet these compliance requirements.

A Customized Cloud

Financial institution need to assess all the risks involved in their processes. Some of those tasks cannot be outsourced. That’s why the financial organization goes through a strict evaluation and assessment of the provider to ensure the quality of service is guaranteed as promised when choosing a provider.

The greatest risk for any organization, however, is not being ready to implement a digital transformation. Larger organizations face internal resistance. There is a resistance to change that plagues both large and small companies.

As more and more companies adopt cloud solutions, however, those in the financial services industry are looking to implement the cloud themselves to keep up. The need to incorporate on demand, easy-to-use services to meet ever changing customer expectation.

The skepticism by financial institutions is understandable. However, they were using Amazon Web Services which is a public cloud provider. There are CSP’s that cater to mid-market businesses and offer personalized services to their partners in the financial services industry. These types of services are more characteristic of private or hybrid clouds.

For example, CSP systems engineers at Nerds Support take the time to evaluate their partners’ current IT infrastructure through an extensive consultation process, rather than pushing a one-size-fits-all cloud service.

Things to Consider

The point here is that CSP’s are not all the same. They vary in the services they provide and how the go about implementing the cloud itself.
When adopting a cloud strategy, financial services decision makers should watch out for:

• Cloud providers that are unwilling to use compliance and up-to-date security to improve and personalize their service.
• Cloud providers that lack the financial services expertise necessary to maintain compliance and regulation standards.
• Make sure that your cloud contract states you keep ownership over all your data.

Customer Support is Important

In the early years of cloud computing, customer support was a huge issue for users. Users plagued by poor response times, inexperienced technicians and overall poor customer experience. Since then, CSP’s have taken great strides in improving support. Cloud technology has been around long enough to better implement through industries that benefit.

If you need a rapid response to client issues, make sure that your cloud services provider has options available for technical support. These options should include phone consultations, email and user training.

The reason to emphasize this point is because a CSP partnership is one that works best when it’s long term. Choosing a cloud provider that dissatisfies means going through the grueling process of migrating from one account partner to another. The problem is, many of these applications don’t easily transfer to other systems.

What are you waiting for?

It’s time for the financial services industry to leverage financial cloud to improve productivity, security and service. The opportunities and capabilities are there. For more information on  financial cloud services, call us at (305) 551-2009 or contact us with the button below.

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A pair of Nerds glasses surrounded by SOX, SOC, & FINRA compliance standards surrounded by clouds

Compliance on the Cloud 101

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What is Compliance?

Compliance when dealing with cloud computing can be an issue for those using cloud storage or backup services. When you transfer data from your internal storage to a cloud provider’s you must examine how that data is stored so that you stay in compliance with laws and regulations. Financial cloud computing, for example, requires IT sox compliance to ensure quality of service.

In 2002 the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was implemented as a response to huge accounting scandals. Companies like Enron, Global Crossing and others misled investors and cost shareholders billions of dollars. This, in turn, changed the IT world forever. What does this have to do with IT? It changed how we approach things like storage, data, security and other functions. 

Cloud compliance is, simply put, a principle that states a cloud based system must be compliant with standards that the cloud customer faces.

Compliance departments ensure that businesses conform to established rules and it’s important to understand, when switching over to a cloud service, how and in what ways the cloud meets compliance standards. Luckily, there are cloud providers that ensure compliance with regulations like SOX. 

If you’re in the financial services industry there are a few things to think about when considering an IT solutions cloud provider. 

How Compliance Works 

A global survey conducted by Veritas Technologies, a data management company, revealed that of the 13 countries and 1,200 businesses surveyed, 69 percent of organizations or 828, wrongfully believed that data protection, data privacy and compliance are the responsibility of the cloud service provider.

It isn’t.

When it comes to cloud compliance you need to be aware of the data you should move to the cloud and the data that should remain in house, the questions you need to ask of your cloud provider and what be written in a service-level agreement (SLA) to maintain industry compliance.

When SOX was first written, it explicitly left out how regulations should be met. This ensured that industries could adopt the most recent technology instead of having to wait for lawmakers to catch up to technology. Because of this, the cloud is a viable infrastructure for financial companies that forced to adhere to compliance rules. 

 The way IT departments store records changed due to the implementation of SOX. Regulations state what kind of information needs to be stored that relate to SOX compliance. Things like electronic records and messages, spreadsheets and emails are considered valuable and fall under the regulation.  

It’s important that you not take this for granted, and evaluate your SLA’s with the provider.

The first thing that organizations need to do is be aware of the type of services they use. There may be certain information that’s regarded as highly confidential and a company may decide to keep it on an internal network. Or if it is moved to the cloud, it’ll be a private cloud that will be hosted on the premises.

Nerds Support has a hybrid cloud in a secure location that has military grade security.

Ensuring Cloud Compliance 

Once your company has decided what information is to be transferred over to the cloud look at the contracts you have between with your cloud provider. Depending on whether the cloud is internal or external the approach will be slightly different. If it’s external, you have to make sure both you and the provider are clear about what type of data should reside on their cloud services and how they’ll protect said data. If it’s an internal cloud, are you going to have internal compliance checklist to make sure you’re within the regulatory standards?

With cloud financial services, customers and cloud providers share the responsibility to maintain compliance. It’s the duty of the organization to investigate the security policies of the vendor. 

Important questions to ask include: 

  • Where is data stored?
  • Who has access to the storage areas or data centers?
  • How is my data protected?

Compliance 101 SOX FINRA Cost Statistics

Service Organization Controls 

In some cases, companies can look at providers that certify compliance and chose their services without any further research. There are times, however, where a company will have to be more thorough and get involved in the cloud providers security to make sure it complies with industry standards. When it comes to SOX compliance, however, you should look for a vendor that provides you with Service Organization Controls.

This report enables user auditor to evaluate audit risks associated with the use of a financial cloud provider.   

It’s also important to establish and verify benchmarks that help check the effectiveness of the security around your data on the cloud.  Make sure your provider uses federal government guidelines for cloud security if it’s based in the US.

In order to avoid miscommunications between your cloud provider and your organization, make sure you take the time to classify the data in level of importance, delegating carefully what is suitable for the cloud and what needs to remain internally stored. Have the right contracts and go through them, establishing what will be covered under their services and how they’ll protect and back up your data. A business continuity plan is also imperative, just in case of any hiccups.

Nerds Support has cloud services that comply with financial regulations.

Contact us today to schedule a free IT assessment that can identify gaps in your IT infrastructure.

cyber hacker breaches the security of thousands of Canadian CPA firms

CPA Canada Breach Exposes Over 300,000 People

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Data Breach in CPA Canada

A breach of CPA Canada exposed the personal data of over 300,000 Canadian accountants and stakeholders.

According to existing reports, the information pertained to the distribution of CPA Magazine. CPA Canada said credit card numbers and passwords were encrypted and not among the exposed data. The cyber criminals accessed CPA Canada members’ contact information on the organization’s website.

Approximately 329,000 individuals were notified of the breach and warned of possible attacks in the future.

It warned members to stay vigilant of possible phishing emails, texts or phone calls that may come as a result of the attack.

Taking Secure Steps

Members of CPA Canada will have to check their emails frequently and be careful not to open any attachments from unsolicited messages.

CPA Canada took steps to secure its systems to secure their site, however the breach could have happened months earlier. As is the case with many breaches, it’s difficult to pinpoint when exactly a breach happens.

The association ties the incident to an alert issued in April about a phishing campaign that requested users to change their CPA Canada password due to a website breach. This is a common way cyber attackers gain access to information.

A similar breach occurred after the launch of Disney Plus. Experts say that hackers sent fraudulent emails asking users to “verify” their passwords so they could be saved and sold on the dark web.

They explain that the emails originated from the IT department where the victim was employed. The emails indicates that the IT department suspected a security issue with the domain cpacanada.ca.

This is Nothing New For CPA’s

Unfortunately, this type of event is too common for accounting firms. In April 2020, the IRS issued warnings to taxpayers and firms to be aware of phishing scams involving the stimulus checks from the CARES Act.

Cyber security experts advise accountants to take even greater care of their data especially when working remotely.

Forcing digitalization has left many firms more vulnerable to attacks than ever. The usual types of phishing attacks are all present only now they’re more frequent. Hackers know that firms that had issues shifting to a remote environment left many digital vulnerabilities exposed.

The IRS itself had struggled with enabling employees to work remotely. Changes to internal systems and readjustments made for enabling remote access leaves gaps for attackers firms might not otherwise have.

Some Firms are More Vulnerable Than Others

CPA Canada reports that all activities are normal for now, but things could have turned out much worse. Accounting firms that neglect their cybersecurity can quickly become the victims of hackers. The moment attackers gain access, they encrypt and freeze data until your firm pays their fee.

Larger firms are safer because they perform frequent audits and have security consultants ready in hand. However, smaller firms might not have the resources and cyber security skills necessary to protect themselves.

These firms still deal with sensitive financial information so they become preferred targets by hackers. It’s much easier for a hacker to attack several small firms than one larger one.

Conversely, firms experience attacks caused by spiteful or careless employees. Performing regular backups is better than doing nothing but there is no guarantee the hacker won’t just keep your data hostage. Paying the ransom doesn’t guarantee an end to the attack either.

How Do you Prepare Against Phishing Attacks?

The best way to prepare for an attack is to do incremental backups and consistently testing those backups. Backups are useless if you can’t restore your systems should something happen.

Working Remotely Adds New Risks

Now that CPA firms are working remotely, they might not have the same resources or security measures they would have in an office setting. Firm employees typically access applications through their secured office desktops. Accessing these same applications on a personal device could mean they are easier to breach even with a VPN.

IF a CPA failed to assess the security measures needed to function remotely it can leave the doors open to a cyber attack that breaches systems quickly.

Compliance is Key

A way smaller firms can avoid scenarios like the one mentioned above is by applying best practices when it comes to IT security. Even if you are a smaller firm with limited IT personnel, there are Managed IT services providers that can supply you with the needed boost in security.

How? By doing what the larger firms are doing, applying best practices to all of your systems. A CPA has to follow strict compliance regulations in order to operate. SOX and FINRA regulations, for example, require regular audits that demonstrate sensitive financial data is kept safe.

The added benefit achieving compliance is that it requires a secure IT infrastructure. By auditing and verifying compliance firm are also checking for cyber vulnerabilities.

Cyber criminals have learned that companies are increasingly more difficult to infiltrate by directly breaking through their security systems. That is why they rely on phishing attacks to go around this problem.

Phishing Attacks Still Happen Because They Still Work

In the case of CPA Canada a phishing scam exposed valuable information. Phishing scams are still the most popular form of cyber attack today. That is because it doesn’t target a network, it targets the user.

Phishing is all about manipulating the target into performing an action. It can be downloading an infected attachment or clicking on a malicious link.

With phishing scams, hackers don’t have to worry about the strength of a firm’s network because no matter how strong the network, it’s only as strong as its most gullible employee.

It can be even worse when added to a remote environment. Having a dedicated team of IT experts available 24/7 improves an employee’s chances of avoiding a phishing attack altogether.

Nerds Support has comprehensive IT solutions that allow our technicians to flag and monitor potential email scams. However, the safest action to take if you have a limited IT team is to send suspicious emails over to your IT department rather than opening them yourself.

CPA Canada has contacted the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center and private authorities to conduct a proper investigation. Only time will tell the ramifications of this breach and how vulnerable those affected really are.

Financial advisor working remotely from home on his computer.

4 Things Financial Firms can do to Succeed Remotely

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Financial firms are in the best position to succeed in a remote environment. Engaging with clients is easier than meeting in person and much of the work can be done regardless of location.

Americans are slowly adjusting to working from home. As states begin to ease the quarantine restrictions some companies are declaring permanent remote work environments. Companies like Facebook and Twitter are offering their employees the opportunity to work from home indefinitely.

Many firms have already moved to a fully remote operation and many more will do so in the future. However, moving to remote work can be difficult if handled incorrectly. Creating a successful remote operation is a new challenge CPA’s and financial firms will have to overcome.

When the lock-down started business owners looked to getting operations up as quickly as possible. Those who hadn’t migrated to a cloud based system did so. Others only migrated partly. While others still, struggled to adapt to a fully remote workplace. Video conferencing tools like Zoom and Microsoft teams grew in use and popularity.

Daily downloads of the videoconferencing app Zoom increased by 300 million participants since March. Businesses and employees spent time researching the different videoconferencing application and IT services companies that best fit their standards. But that’s only the beginning.

If you as a financial firm want to succeed in a remote environment you have to navigate cooperation, time management, data security and keeping your business functioning even while everyone may be so distant.

Here are a few ways to achieve success for your firm while working apart.

1) Take Advantage of Your Remote Environment

Maybe you’ve already noticed, but it’s difficult to distract each other with office gossip when there isn’t an office to gossip about. 85 percent of employees are either not engaged or disengaged at work. As a result, there is a 7 trillion dollar loss in productivity. Many offices have an open office layout which create a 32 percent drop in productivity.

However, this is harder to replicate when you’re forced to work remotely. Instead, the productive thing to do is to set virtual office hours or schedule meetings for a specific hour the day. Employees and staff can reserve a meeting however you choose. This might appear obvious to some but even in a remote environment it’s easy to get side tracked. You get one call from one colleague and then anther call 20 minutes later from an employee.  By the time you finish, you might not remember what you were doing in the first place.

Designate a period of time in your weekly and daily schedule for all meetings. The routine will also keep you focused and organized. Keeping a routine can lead to positive mental health. A routine can help manage stress levels and less overall anxiety, according to one study by Northwestern Medicine. College professors and councilors are very familiar with this system. It would be like having virtual office hours where team members can choose a slot and book a meeting.

2) Adapt to Technology

If you stop and think, if something like the Lockdown of 2020 had happened ten years earlier, remote work would not be possible. The emergence of cloud technology and communication apps like Microsoft Teams, Skype, Facetime, and Zoom together is what allows for a successful remote work environment.

Moving forward, many experts expect these changes to persist, bringing in a new era of remote activity. For financial firms, advising, asset valuation, and consulting will be done remotely. Firms should be looking to build on this change and integrate a remote reality to their existing operation.

What can your firm do to remain competitive, updated, and secure. Invest in a cloud service provider. IT services are going to be pivotal in the coming decades. Managed service providers will be in a position to make or break your firm. Look up the different cloud models and their features. Are they FINRA or SOX compliant? Where are their servers located? Are they stored somewhere outside the U.S.?

Nerds Support specializes in working with financial firms. However, there are many options available when hiring a managed IT service provider. Some are better than others, depending on the industry. You have to factor in security, location, knowledge of your industry, and even availability.

The Workplace platform provides a comprehensive solution that combines cyber security, compliance, & remote work needs.

The Workplace platform provides a comprehensive solution that combines cyber security, compliance, & remote work needs.

Is there someone you can talk to when something goes wrong? Do you have a point of contact? Sometimes a support team consists of strangers and other times it’s the CEO.

4) Build a Better Team Remotely

Human beings are social animals.  Although remote work is beneficial to productivity, it might be harmful to be socially isolated from your team. But there is a solution.

Team building is an important tool for social bonding and improving motivation. Setting aside an hour at the end of the week to celebrate that week’s accomplishments is a good example of team-building. There are a ton of other games and exercises you can try over video chat. Many have done virtual hangouts. Virtual happy hours are also popular. Even virtual competitions with certain free online games have brought offices together.   

5) Make Sure to Reconnect with Reality

The biggest issue in a remote work environment is that everything does seem to blend together. When you can’t distinguish your bedroom from your workplace it’s easy to get lost in a work-all-the-time mentality. Having an office has the psychological benefit of creating a barrier between your personal and work life.

A Stanford study showed that after 50 hours a week productivity sharply drops. Even worse, after 55 hours productivity gets so low that working becomes counterproductive.

I bring up the Stanford study because the comforts of working from home can often trick you into working more. Working an extra hour won’t kill you but the added stress of feeling like you’re at work at all hours is a serious problem. Establish clear boundaries for yourself and your team. When it’s time to log off, you log off. Communicate with your team your unavailability after a set time. Go for a walk, listen to music, but most importantly stay away from your computer.