As companies send employees home in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, cybersecurity experts are warning that telecommuting could be putting company assets and data at risk.
There are a number of precautions that employees working from home should consider to ensure that sensitive data isn’t compromised by cybercriminals taking advantage of the health crisis.
One of the biggest problems is that employees working remotely often become relaxed and can let their guard down. In other cases, workers wrongly assume that when they work at home they have the same level of security protection as in the office.
“Typically when employees are inside of the corporate network, the enterprise security stack will protect them,” said Matias Katz, CEO of Byos.
“But working from home exposes the employee’s devices — and through them, the company’s network — to threats that exist on dirty public WiFi networks,” he told TechNewsWorld.
Know more: data security consultant
New Opportunities for Cybercriminals
One significant security problem is that with so much data hosted in remote server farms or the cloud, that data is only as safe as the connections that can gain access to it. In an office the systems can be better hardened, but allowing staff to work remotely can be akin to opening the gates to the barbarians.
“There’s no question that working outside the workplace can increase cyber risk,” said Elad Shapira, head of research at Panorays.