The Cyber Risks of Working From Home : As I’m sure everyone knows, home working has become more popular than ever before and this is great. It allows for more flexibility, saves time and money. It also boosts job satisfaction and work-life balance.
That being said, in order to fully harness these benefits – and keep your business and employees safe – it’s important to understand the risks. We need to be aware of the cyber risks associated with home working:
Unauthorised Access from Home Networks
With employees working from home it can be hard to monitor who may have access to their unlocked laptop. If they’re not actually working from home i.i a local cafe with free Wi-Fi. Therefore, it’s difficult to see who else might have exposure to company data.
Unsecured Devices and Home Networks
Unfortunately, it’s still not uncommon for home workers to be working on their personal devices. BOYD makes the business and its information vulnerable. This is not to mention the security issues presented by any unsecured networks your employee may or may not be connected to whilst they’re working from the pub, oh sorry, I meant home of course!
Phishing Emails
When working from home, it’s much harder to ensure employees aren’t accidentally clicking on dodgy emails, especially if you don’t have strong protection from a good email security product. Did you know a study shows in 2021, 66% of surveyed companies experienced a successful phishing attack, with 30% suffering from malware infection as a result!
Even just these few examples of home working risks (there are more!) could potentially result in the loss/mishandling of sensitive data and intellectual property. As a result, this poses significant financial and potentially even legal ramifications for the business.
Has your business considered these risks? Do you have sufficient controls in place to mitigate such risks?
