Workplace environment has been changing considerably in the recent years. One of the most notable change that has been observed is the increasing number of employees working remotely.
Businesses around the world are offering remote work arrangements to their employees to keep them happy and productive. However, in this case, productivity comes with the cost of breaching.
While productivity blooms due to remote working arrangements, arising security issues portray a different story. Even though the risks associated are huge, 92% of the IT professionals believe that the benefits associated are worth the risks.
If you’re an employee whose company accommodates a remote workforce, then you might understand why remote working is considered as a luxury. According to the results of a survey onducted by Owl Labs, a video conferencing company in the United States, employees who work remotely are 22% happier with their jobs than those who don’t.
However, remote staff tends to create more security risks for the company as compared to onsite employees. Here is why remote work can add to the security threat for a company.
It is difficult to juggle remote work and security
A survey conducted by Apricorn in early June 2018 revealed that almost 95% of the businesses in the UK are struggling to secure their data while accommodating remote staff employment.
Following are the reasons why securing remote work proves to be difficult:
- Mobile working – Remote working is often performed on personal devices, which increases usage of mobile phone devices for work purposes. Considering that mobile phones aren’t even fully secured for personal use, accessing for company data and work is highly precarious. As per the Apricorn survey report, claims of data loss and the breach have been reported by third organizations due to direct mobile working.
- Employers impotence – The study further found that only half of the employers in the UK facilitates remote workers with encryption on devices. The impotence of employers sometimes results in loss and breach of valuable data.
Remote workers are really not concerned about security
Imation Corp survey conducted on 1,000 UK and German remote workers stated that the majority of these workers had little concern towards company’s data security. The study showed that the lack of commitment towards security practices by remote staff results in the loss of a company’s confidential data.
According to the study, 25% of the participants admitted breaking security protocols to facilitate their remote working recourse. 6 out of 10 participants agreed that companies in the UK and Germany lacked a remote working policy. The incompetence and irresponsibility of employers are alarming. 40% of the respondents also stated that their companies didn’t provide them with the right tools to work remotely.
Employees believe that Internet is secure
A survey conducted Cisco found that 55% of remote working staff in the United States have faith that the internet is a secure platform and therefore are negligent towards protecting their company’s confidential data as advised.
The risky behavior of remote workers included practicing various violations of security protocals, some of which include:
- Opening emails and attachments from suspicious sources. 77& of US remote workers admitted to doing so.
- Using work devices provided by the company for their personal use.
- Allowing their friends and family members to use their work devices.
These statistics should be enough to alert employers who facilitate remotely working to take appropriate actions for their company’s data security.
Some security solutions for remote workers
Mentioned below are some basic tools for remote as well as regular workers for securing confidential data:
- Multi-factor authentication – With an extra layer of authentication, there’s less risk of cyber-criminals peeking their way onto your sensitive systems.
- Password Manager – Not everyone has a memory like an elephant, therefore it’s crucial to have a password manager tool installed in work devices to avoid any mishap while working remotely or onsite.
- VPN– This tool is essential for remote work staff to keep the company’s data protected from unsecured wifi connections, hotspots, and other networks. The tool helps in routing the traffic through the internet from an organization’s private network. This ensures a high level of security and a source to facilitate remotely working staff.
Conclusion
Working remotely gives you the freedom of working at the utmost convenience. Remote working also brings some secret luxuries as it allows employees to stream videos on Netflix or avail their cox tv packages to catch up on some news while doing work. However, these luxuries might result in nightmares if adequate security measures aren’t exercised to protect a company’s data from breaching.
