Two-thirds of remote workers in the UK haven’t received cybersecurity training over the past year, raising fears that they may be more susceptible to attacks as hackers adapt their tactics during the current crisis.
Norwegian app security firm Promon polled 2000 remote workers to better assess where organizations may be exposed during the pandemic.
It found that, as well as the majority not having received training over the previous year, 77% said they aren’t worried about security while working from home. Over-confidence can often lead to users making mistakes which land them in trouble.
What’s more, over three-fifths (61%) said they were using personal rather than corporate-issued devices to work remotely, increasing the chances that they aren’t properly protected, configured or aligned with corporate security policies.
“Lack of cybersecurity awareness training combined with distributed business software and applications that run within untrusted environments are some of the biggest issues organizations of all sizes are facing," Promon co-founder, Tom Lysemose Hansen, told Infosecurity.
"This is particularly prevalent in SMBs, often due to insufficient funding. Organizations must ensure that they run business-critical apps in trusted and protected environments. There are many inexpensive cybersecurity awareness platforms on the market, which are specifically designed to help SMBs remain safe from attacks and, very crucially, protect endpoint devices.”
Reports have been flooding in from multiple vendors of a sharp increase in COVID-19-themed phishing emails. Google claimed it blocks 18 million malicious and phishing emails every day for its users.
Such threats can be used to deliver ransomware, BEC, credential-harvesting phishing, VPN malware and more.
Cyber-criminals are looking to capitalize on the widespread appetite for more information about the pandemic, as well as urgent communications between bosses, partners and employees, to trick users into clicking through.
With the entire family forced to stay indoors, home workers may also be more distracted than they would normally be.