RWS_Spring_21

SECURITY S ince the outbreak of the pandemic, most organiza- tions in affected areas have been instructing employees to work re- motely. Yet, many companies have been moving forward with remote work without proper IT and policy oversight and preparation, which is raising serious cybersecurity concerns. According to a study from the Ponemon Institute, just 44 per- cent of companies now feel they are effectively positioned against cyberattacks, down from the 71 percent that felt the same in early 2020. Meanwhile, 71 percent of organizations are very concerned about remote workers being the cause of a data breach, while 42 percent don’t know how to defend against cyberattacks aimed at remote workers. Companies learned very early on in the pandemic about the dangers of working from home after rushing into remote deploy- ments without taking proper security precautions. In most cases, this was due to a lack of time. IT and security departments were under enormous pressure to upgrade capacities quickly to maintain productivity and opera- tions, resulting in improving and/ or replacing existing systems with limited time to do compre- hensive security tests. In some cases, teams had to gain control over remote workforces in a mat- ter of days. It was an emergency situation that required triaging, instead of advanced planning. IT shortcomings were exposed almost immediately, when em- ployees began using insecure devices and platforms for meet- ings, sharing, and storing data, and connecting to cloud services. The shift to remote work also led to a major uptick in shadow IT, and employees operating outside of the scope of security teams. Thought Things Were Tough Before? By Bob Flinton Remote work leads to whole new cybersecurity concerns 44 REMOTE WORK SOLUTIONS rwsmagazine.com