Remote working may be great for employee productivity and work-life balance, but it’s terrible for cybersecurity posture, a new report from cloud security firm Doherty Associates claims.
As reported by City AM, the new report states that almost half of managers (42 percent) from financial institutions and law firms do not have clear visibility into threats targeting remote workers. Furthermore, they are also clueless about the volume of attacks aimed at employees.
“With employees working outside of the office, using a blend of personal and company devices, firms no longer have a single ‘front door’ to protect but a multitude of entry points to secure against cybercriminals,” said Terry Doherty, CEO at Doherty Associates.
More than half (52 percent) of the firms polled for the report said they haven’t experienced a cyberattack or a data breach in the past 12 months. However, a quarter of employees said they had fallen victim to a data breach in the same timeframe.
Roughly half of organizations said they had carried out a cyberrisk assessment on the remote workforce, but a quarter confirmed they couldn’t guarantee that all remote working devices were secure
“Unfortunately, attacks are common in the finance, insurance and legal sectors, particularly in this current climate of remote working, and the difference between how many firms are detecting breaches compared to the reality of them occurring does suggest that firms need better cyber defense postures that give greater visibility and detection to keep their remote workforce safe,” said Doherty.