Two-Thirds of Employees Don’t Consider Security Whilst Home Working

More than two-thirds (68%) of UK workers do not consider the cybersecurity impact of working from home, according to a new study by VPNOverview.com.

The survey of 2043 employees in the UK demonstrated a lack of awareness about how to stay secure whilst working remotely, which is putting businesses at risk of attacks. The shift to home working as a result of COVID-19 means that staff in many organizations are operating across insecure devices and networks, providing opportunities for cyber-criminals.

Although 71% of workers do not think about the implications a cybersecurity breach could have on their work and job security, when asked, 45% said they could lose their job if their working device’s security was compromised.

VPNOverview calculated that home workers are risking an average of £2100 in company hardware and unnamed sums in company data by not undertaking basic security practices. These include not having password protection for working devices (34%), leaving working devices in plain view of windows (32%), not using password-protected Wi-Fi while working from home (26%) and not operating on secured servers, databases or cloud systems (24%).

The industries in which the highest rates of cybersecurity errors were made were manufacturing and utilities (65%), construction and engineering (61%) and recruitment (57%).

In addition, 17% of all employees polled admitted to breaking confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) by discussing work matters with friends and family.

David Janssen, security researcher and founder, VPNOverview.com, commented: “It’s worrying to see how many workers aren’t taking into consideration their security and cybersecurity, even after almost a year of working from home. With home working unlikely to end any time soon, a ..

Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.