50% Of All Work from Home Employees Are Ignoring Cybersecurity Protocols

According to a recent study, more than half of work from home employees are putting their organizations at risks for a cybersecurity attack by being lax about security protocols. 

With an increase of almost a third of the country working from home due to covid-19, the amount of risk for organizations to suffer an online attack is growing exponentially. 

Analysis by researchers at a large cybersecurity company 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.

Some reasons given include the convenience of using their own device as well as taking liberties because they know they’re not under the scrutiny of IT and the security team. 

Others who answered the survey, however, gave less malicious reasons. Some have been cutting corners simply due to working from home with the added chaos of kids in the house, room-mates, no proper office setup etc. 

Additionally, half of those surveyed reported they’ve had to find workarounds to standard policies in order to stay efficient, suggesting current policies are too strict for remote employees to adapt successfully. 

If your company’s security policies or data protection policies do not incorporate the home network, then steps should be taken to update those policies as soon as possible.

Policies must include remote workers and approved methods for remote access. They must include data storage, and safe data handling. If you have compliance requirements, these too must be modified to incorporate remote data. We’ve put together a guidebook to help navigate these risky waters. Click below to download “5 Risks To Plan For with Work From Home Employees.”