Twenty percent of IT enterprises experienced a breach due to a remote worker during the pandemic, says a report by Malwarebytes Labs. Choosing to let employees work remotely comes with pros and cons—the cons primarily being unanticipated security vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities are more likely to occur because of employee ignorance, rather than a network or system malfunction.
Ensuring employees operate securely regardless of location has grown in importance over the last several years as the number of people working remotely has exploded. These workers are most likely operating within a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN). They use SD-WAN to work with data that is now processed more and more in many different cloud services.
Hybrid work, which involves splitting the working week between in-office and remote work time, is the new normal that many companies have been adapting to after the COVID-19 pandemic crisis forced them to work remotely to continue providing services. A recent study indicates that, in fact, 58% of companies have been encouraged to promote a hybrid return to the office. In addition, it estimates that 48% of employees will be following a hybrid or remote model in the next two years.
Insider risks are threats that already have access to an organization’s sensitive information. They are people who have physical access to the organization’s buildings and credentials to sign-on to the network. But maybe more importantly, they’re familiar with the organization’s processes, they speak the company lingo, and they know where the important assets reside.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organizations to temporarily transition to remote work environments. Two years have passed, but the remote work trend is still with us, with over 75% of people worldwide working remotely at least once a week. As telecommuting concerns more cybersecurity experts around the world, some security officers still make drastic mistakes in configuring and managing remote environments.
Remote work has significantly changed how employers hire and manage employees. Research shows the remote trend is only rising. 58% of US workers have the option to work remotely. More companies are leveraging talent across the U.S. and the world, making their companies stronger and more diverse.
