20% of Remote Staff Have Downloaded Company Data on Personal Devices

One in five (20%) UK employees have downloaded commercially sensitive or confidential company files on a personal device whilst working from home, a new study from gadget insurance firm Protect Your Bubble has found. What is more, of these respondents, 40% admitted that there was either no password protection or up-to-date security installed on these devices, which include desktops, laptops, tablets or smartphones. A further 7% had neither.

The survey of 2000 UK workers across a range of industries examined employees’ experiences during a prolonged period of remote working as a result of COVID-19 lockdown measures. A number of other studies this year have also highlighted that insecure behaviors are prevalent amongst staff working from home, putting organizations at higher risk of cyber-attack.

The new research also revealed that younger employees are more likely to engage in poor cybersecurity practices, with almost 30% of respondents under the age of 24 acknowledging that they had used personal devices for work purposes during the last six months. Of these, 50% said they did not have either password protection or security software installed on such devices.

Older employees were found to have a more disciplined approach to cybersecurity, with the rate of work from home staff handling company data on their personal devices reducing by age, to under 8% for those aged 45-54 and for over 55s.

The sectors which had the worst records for remote staff downloading sensitive or confidential company documents onto personal devices during lockdown were HR (22%), IT and telecoms (21.4%) and finance (21.4%).

A particularly concerning finding was that healthcare had the highest proportion of employees downloading this type of in ..

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