Half Of Lockdown Remote Workers Ignore Cyber Security

The Covid-19 virus has forced both employers and employees to change to remote working and this mean there is an acute  lack of IT security teams being able to focus on employees and their cyber actions. More than 50% of personnel are losing cyber security focus during home working and  putting their organisation at risk from cyberattacks and data breaches. 

Workers are taking more risks online than they would at the office. Analysis by researchers at cyber security company Tessian reveals that 52% of employees believe they can get away with riskier behaviour when working from home, such as sharing confidential files via email instead of more trusted mechanisms.

According to Tessian's, The State of Data Loss Report, some of the top reasons employees aren't completely following the same safe data practices as usual include working from their own device, rather than a company issued one, as well as feeling as if they can take additional risks because they're not being watched by IT and security. 

People mostly aren't ignoring security practices on purpose, but have distractions while working from home, such as childcare, room-mates and not having a desk set-up like they would at the office, are having an impact on how people operate. Soememployees say they're being forced to cut security corners because they're under pressure to get work done quickly.

Half of those surveyed said they've had to find work-arounds for security policies in order to efficiently do the work they're required to do, suggesting that in some cases, security policies are too much of a barrier for employees working from home to adapt to. 

By adopting workarounds employees could be putting their organisation at risk from cyberattacks, especially as hackers increasingly turn their attention to remote workers. "People will cut corners on security best practices when working remotely and find workarounds if security policies disrupt their productivity in these new working conditions," said Tim Salder, CEO of Tessian.  

Many organisations have been forced to hastily adopt remote-working structures and policies and as more are opting to keep these flexible structures, maintaining visibility over data flow is now more difficult. 

The new office is a virtual one, which means past strategies have become obsolete. In fact, they became obsolete the day companies switched to remote-working. While the surge in remote working is bringing additional challenges for both employees and employers, there are a number of simple steps that can be taken to boost security without impeding productivity. 

TESSIAN:       ZDNet:      East Midlands Business Link:

Security awareness training confronts the risk of data loss by educating employees on best practice and company policies. Business needs cyber security training and we at Cyber Security Intelligence recommend GoCyber training for all employees and management – it is excellent – please contact GoCyber for a free trial.

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