COVID-19 has triggered a worldwide work-from-home situation for pretty much everyone that can do it in 2020. Although the virus is impacting nearly every aspect of our lives, there may be a silver lining: remote working can benefit businesses and the planet.<\/p>\n
Remote working has been steadily growing in popularity<\/a> over the last few years, and for good reasons. A Stanford University study<\/a> found that employees were, on average, 13 percent more productive at home as opposed to in the office. And there are operational benefits too. Organizations with flexible work-from-home schedules tend to spend less on running large offices or scale down their office space. Throw in the fact that you\u2019re sparing the planet your employees\u2019 commute (dolphins returning to Venice canals<\/a> is an extreme but excellent example), and it\u2019s a no-brainer.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not advocating a constant work-from-home situation \u2013 innovation thrives with face time with others \u2013 but if COVID-19 teaches us anything, it\u2019s that remote working could benefit business and the planet.<\/p>\n Remote working is a massive change in the way people work, and if handled without preparation, there are some serious cybersecurity risks. Most will be down to the way your employees work. A 2019 report by Kaspersky<\/a> found that 72 percent of employees in smaller businesses store documents that have personally identifiable data.\u00a0 And in a 2019 report on the cost of cyber-breaches<\/a>, 52 percent of enterprises reported that breaches happen after employees\u2019 inappropriate IT use.<\/p>\n Employees feel removed from the corporate gaze when they\u2019re at home, which can aid productivity. But it also means they may not be as conscious of following security best practices, and IT staff aren\u2019t on hand to give quick-fire advice.<\/p>\n Nine times out of ten, your employees will work using a corporate device (if you\u2019ve provided it) but they may use it for personal stuff, like online shopping. Hackers are smart; they anticipate these changes and are always seeking new ways to exploit your business.<\/p>\n With so many people at home 24\/7 and shopping online, we see a big spike in online phishing attacks<\/a>. Hackers are embedding traps by setting up fake sites emulating big-name online supermarkets.<\/p>\n We see an increase in situation-sensitive phishing attacks, like COVID-19 advice emails from hackers<\/a> pretending to be healthcare organizations. Once users click on these, especially if they\u2019re connected to your corporate VPN, hackers can get access to your network, which could place your entire corporate data at risk.<\/p>\n Everyone working from home concurrently also throws up new challenges for how IT teams can best support users. Usually, in an office, an employee might go to the IT team and say, \u201cMy computer is running slow, can you help?\u201d The IT support desk fixes the issue promptly, and then all is well. When they\u2019re at home, they may just live with it, particularly when IT managers are overloaded with new requests from novice homeworkers.<\/p>\n What happens when there\u2019s an immediate issue? Many IT teams don\u2019t have the experience or tools to investigate remote cyberattacks and cure them instantly. So the focus right now is to increase our efforts to stop these attacks before they happen. \u00a0But how? Training is crucial to help your teams to become cyber-aware<\/a>. Plan a program of learning, with a mix of online learning, classroom (virtual or real-world) and regular advice by email. You could test whether people can spot a phishing attack by setting up a fake phishing email<\/a>.\u00a0 To start, try this free 30-minute adaptive learning course<\/a> by Kaspersky and Area9 Lyceum for those who are new to remote working to help them work safely from home with lessons about choosing strong passwords, the importance of endpoint protection and regular software updates.<\/p>\n Education is vital, and right now, clear communication is crucial. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Employees need to know what\u2019s acceptable to do on corporate devices, rather than simply what they shouldn\u2019t do. With weekly calls or online chats, you can talk to users about what they\u2019re seeing, advise them on best practice and answer their questions. This gets them comfortable talking to the experts, so if something happens, you can respond quicker.<\/p>\nRemote working increases cybersecurity risks<\/h2>\n
Changing behavior is your biggest cybersecurity challenge<\/h2>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\nTeach your teams to become cyber-aware<\/h2>\n
Build a culture of trust<\/h2>\n