In recent months, many companies have been stepping up their efforts to increase the safety of employees working remotely. And as working from home may become even more widespread, there is still much to be done in this area.
According to an IBM, more than 80% of respondents said they rarely worked from home or had never worked from home before the pandemic.
Half of the 2,000 employees surveyed said they work without new security policies to guide them. A similar percentage said they were concerned about the risks to their data security.
"Business activities that were once conducted exclusively in protected office environments and monitored based on specific policies have been moved into a new and potentially less secure area," IBM said.
Employees seem confident in their employers’ ability to keep their personal information secure while working remotely. However, more than half now use their personal laptops for work, and 61% said their employer has not provided them with tools to protect these devices.
Additionally, more than half said they had not received guidance on how to properly handle their critical business data while working from home. Two-thirds said they had not received guidance on password management, and one-third still used the same passwords for their work accounts.
Another survey found that tech are now under greater workloads due to the challenges created by remote work. Top security issues included an increase in malicious emails, as well as risky behavior from staff. Half of employees admitted that they don’t pay much attention to security when working from home, either because they are forced to in order to get a job done or simply because it’s easier and faster when working remotely.
Data security for those working from home is still a complex issue, which, although it concerns a large part of businesses, has not yet found a meaningful solution.
