They aren’t giving me a company laptop so I’m using personal pc and asking me to install a VPN. What do I need to do so they can’t see whats on my pc? (nothing illegal, just stuff thats NSFW)
Also, if I buy a laptop for work and connect to the same router that my personal pc is connected to, could their IT dept see what I’m doing on my personal pc?
thanks!
Install it in a virtual machine and do your work in there. I compartmentalize different OSes for different tasks
A. They don’t have admin rights to your computer. They can’t just browse it and see what’s on it. Since your personal computer is not part of their domain, they can’t just look at what’s on it.
B. If you have a personal laptop, and connect to work with a VPN on that laptop, they can’t see your desktop…because your desktop isn’t connected to their network. Furthermore, see point A…they don’t have admin rights to view your stuff.
Be careful with installing company software on your personal equipment. They may claim the software is just a VPN, but you never know what monitoring is happening with the software behind the scenes. Also, even if just a VPN, guaranteed you will forget the VPN is on and start sending stuff through their VPN connection that you shouldn’t.
They should be providing you a company laptop. Short of that, your thought of using a separate personal PC just for work is something you should do.
Answer to all your questions is No
Your company not providing you a work computer is a big red flag :
This is a security risk from the company standpoint as they cannot control softwares you install or not (antivirus, spyware…) and a sign they do not invest even in the most basic things for their employees
They probably will not see anything that is on your computer except if they upload software control with the vpn. In most countries it would be illegal. And if they do not provide you a computer, chances are that their IT doesn’t even know how to do it.
Do they want you to install VPN or just create VPN connection to the office?
If you are just creating VPN - they can’t do anything, it’s just an activation of an already existing module in all major operating systems.
If they want you to install VPN - which one it is?
A VPN is a Virtual Private Network, it encrypts your web traffic end to end and routes your traffic through the nearest one of the provider’s servers (or the one you select) to mask your IP address.
This keeps you safer on the internet by ensuring no one can identify your traffic as yours (IP masking) and encrypting your traffic so it can’t be intercepted.
As a company I would probably require the exact same thing if I couldn’t secure work devices for remote employees which is not uncommon in smaller or less tech focused fields. You’re going to be connecting to their servers and working with their data, they want to minimize the possibility of you becoming a security risk as much as they can without control over the device. A VPN is step one in securely accessing the internet and assuming the VPN they’re asking you to install is from a reputable source (and you actually download it from the source’s page so can not have been modified) you should have absolutely no concerns installing it as it’s not possible for them to get ANY information from you this way. Reputable VPN providers do not keep logs of users traffic or their IP and have no way of providing this information to anyone even if they wanted to.
Couldn’t they put desktop control and spyware on my pc?
It’s very important that you disconnect your vpn when browsing nsfw content or doing anything you don’t want work seeing, they most likely can’t see https traffic but better safe then sorry
everyone would be its their personal stuff and they dont want their company knowing that
Only if it’s included in the VPN package. Otherwise, no. It’s highly unlikely it’s in the VPN installer.
Well, that is Palo Alto’s VPN program. Palo Alto is not a crappy company, they have been around awhile, and I am pretty confident that they are not “sniffing” around your computer more than any and every other software you have already installed and used.
However, as a measure of precaution, and this is not regarding Palo Alto but a rule that should be used always - create a new user account on your computer for a job, and use that account to connect to office network. After you finish work hours - logoff, logon to you usual account.
Edit: and I am even more confident that Palo Alto will not send whatever data they collect to your company, just as any of already existing applications you have did not send them.
how would I know if its included?
Yea but that’s harder and takes more time when he could just ask first
I’m not for one minute suggesting that the company would be spying but if they were going to those sort of lengths what good would encryption be if the person doing the spying had access to the passwords that would unencrypt any encrypted files.
What are they asking you to install, something like Cisco Connect?
You should be able to search for the software they are asking you to install and find out if it does anything more than a VPN.
I think he should delete all sorts of NSFW material and be happy then 
security
Emphasis mine.
Just Google the vpn software they are using, likely they will use the built in windows vpn software which is safe for you. Then have you rdp into a workstation