TL;DR: We’ve published a free Home Device Security Guide that walks a non-technical person through locking down a Windows PC, Mac, Android phone, iPhone, and home Wi-Fi router, step by step. It exists because the weakest link in most small businesses is now a personal device at an employee’s kitchen table. Read it online, download the PDF, and send it to your team and your family this week.
The personal phones and home computers your employees use every day are part of your company’s attack surface, whether you’ve planned for that or not. For a Louisville business owner with 10 to 50 people, that means your security is only as good as the least-protected laptop in somebody’s spare bedroom. So we wrote a free home device security guide for the people who’d never read a corporate security policy: your employees, your spouse, your parents, and you.
It’s not a sales piece. It’s the same checklist we’d walk a family member through, written with the exact menu path for every setting. Read it online or download the PDF.
Why does an IT company care about your employees’ personal devices?
Because attackers do. People are involved in the majority of breaches, and the devices people carry around are easier to reach than the ones behind a company firewall. When an employee reads work email on a phone with a 4-digit passcode, or logs into Microsoft 365 from a home PC that hasn’t been updated in a year, the business inherits that risk.
Verizon’s 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report found the human element was involved in 62% of breaches, and that phishing by text message and phone call now gets 40% higher click rates than email phishing. Texts and calls land on personal phones. That’s the device this guide is about.
Why it matters: You can’t manage a device you don’t own, and most small businesses can’t buy everyone a company phone. What you can do is raise the floor for every device your people use. This guide is that floor.
What’s in the guide?
The Home Device Security Guide covers five things: a Windows PC, a Mac, an Android phone or tablet, an iPhone or iPad, and the home Wi-Fi router, plus a short section on the accounts that matter most (email and a password manager) and a plain-language page on spotting scams. Each device section is a numbered checklist with the exact setting location, written so a non-technical person can finish it in about 30 to 45 minutes.
A few of the things it walks through:
- Updates: Turning on automatic updates, and how to tell when a device is too old to get them anymore.
- Lock screens and encryption: A real passcode (not 4 digits), fingerprint or face unlock, and the one setting that makes a stolen laptop unreadable.
- Two-step verification: Where the setting lives on Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, Amazon, Facebook, your bank, and your mobile carrier.
- Phone theft protection: The Stolen Device Protection and Theft Detection Lock settings most people have never turned on.
- Backups: What to back up, where, and why the external drive should be unplugged between backups.
- Scams: The six signs of a scam message and a one-page table of what to do if something has already gone wrong.
The last page is a set of printable checklists, including a 10-minute monthly routine and a 1-hour yearly one.
How we’d use it if we were you
Send it to every employee with a two-line note: this is free, it’s for your family, and it’ll take an evening. Don’t make it a policy. Make it a gift. People lock down their own phones when it’s about their kids’ photos and their bank account, not when HR tells them to.
Our position: For remote work, the business should provide the laptop so security can be controlled. For personal phones, most of our clients run Microsoft 365 Business Standard, and the built-in device controls there can already require a passcode for mail, block jailbroken or rooted phones, and enforce storage encryption. The guide handles what those controls can’t reach: the home router, the family’s other devices, and the habits.
If you’d like, give it to your clients too. It’s unbranded enough to forward and useful enough that people will remember who sent it.
Conclusion
Your company’s security now extends to every home your employees log in from. You can’t manage all of those devices, but you can make it easy for the people who own them to do the basics. That’s what this guide is for, and it’s free.
The bottom line: Download the guide, work through it on your own devices this weekend, then send it to your team on Monday.
If you’re not sure whether work accounts on personal devices are a problem at your company, that’s exactly the kind of question an intro call answers. Schedule a short conversation with us and we’ll walk through what we’d check first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the Home Device Security Guide for?
Anyone who owns a phone or computer and isn’t technical. We wrote it for employees of the businesses we support and for their families, including older relatives who are targeted most heavily by scams. There’s nothing in it a business owner wouldn’t want their own parents to read.
Is the guide really free? Do I have to fill out a form?
Yes, it’s free, and the online version has no form at all. You can read the whole guide on our site or download the PDF to print or share.
How long does it take to work through?
Plan on 30 to 45 minutes per device the first time, plus about 20 minutes for the Wi-Fi router and 30 minutes for the account setup section. You don’t have to finish in one sitting. The monthly routine afterward takes about 10 minutes.
Does it cover Windows 10?
Yes. The Windows section explains that Microsoft ended free security updates for Windows 10 in October 2025 and what your options are: upgrade to Windows 11 if the PC supports it, enroll in Extended Security Updates, or plan a replacement.
Can I share it with my clients or community group?
Please do. Forward the PDF link, post the article, or print the checklist page for a lunch-and-learn. If you’d like a version with your organization’s name on it for a group, get in touch and we’ll talk about it.
Want the business version of this?
The guide covers homes. The same discipline applied to a company’s computers, email, and network is what our managed IT services in Louisville and cybersecurity awareness training are built around. If you’d like to know where your business stands, start with an intro call. It’s a short call, there’s no pitch, and you’ll leave with a list of what to fix first.