There are gaps in cybersecurity and the level of risk awareness as most of us work from home right now. And if heading back to an office environment happens for some, it isn’t going to be the majority of workers, at least anytime soon. With reports of productivity being higher from the work-from-home structure, many Fortune 500 companies like Twitter have announced this as a permanent setup for all, or many, of their employees.
Recent studies found that more than 50% of employees are using their personal computers while working from home. And 25% of that remote workforce doesn’t know what security protocols they should be following, or which ones are actually in place on their device. This was based on a group of 800 traditional office workers who had recently transitioned to work from home as a result of COVID-19.
A Whole New World
These employees are new to remote working – 49% of them in fact. And they are using new collaboration tools like Skype, Zoom, & MS Teams to get their job done. This has provided cybercriminals with a slew of new opportunities to break into systems via these tools.
In addition, more than 60% of remote workers trust that their IT departments are responding to COVID-19 in an above-average or better way. You can continue to build on that trust by evolving your business to offer remote workers tools to educate themselves on the ever-growing risks and dangers that hackers are generating to attack them with. Ensure that your business is growing and learning, just like they are, to accommodate the new, and normal way, of working remotely. Start with email awareness because it is an easy entry point, but make sure that they know how to maintain and update their hardware to work safely – even if it isn’t company-owned.
It is a time of change and growth in many ways, and the challenges that remote workers face are at the forefront. Make sure that you partner with them to focus on potential flaws in home equipment security and awareness to minimize threats and protect your company’s network and critical business data.
