KUALA LUMPUR, May 5 — Global cybersecurity company Kaspersky’s study today revealed some interesting findings as workers adjust to their new professional environments at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The report entitled “How Covid-19 changed the way people work” found that 55 per cent of workers were reading more news to stay updated with the latest Covid-19 developments.
However, 60 per cent of this activity was done on devices used for work, which could potentially lead to malware infections if employees do not pay attention to the resources and websites they visit.
Over half (51 per cent) of those working from home also admitted to watching more adult content on the same devices they use for work-related purposes.
Kaspersky chief information security officer Andrey Evdokimov said this clearly indicated that organisations should place some restrictions on work-related devices, and that it was necessary to find a balance between user convenience, business necessity, and security.
“A company should provide access to services based on the principle of only supplying minimal, necessary privileges, implement a VPN, and use secure and approved corporate systems. These types of software may have certain restrictions that slightly reduce usability, but offer greater assurances in providing security measures”, said the statement.
Kaspersky recommends employers follow certain measures such as scheduling basic security awareness training for employees; ensuring devices, software, applications, and services are kept updated with the latest patches; and installing proven protection software, such as Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud, on all endpoints, including mobile devices, and switch on firewalls.
Employees are also found to be developing a habit of using their personal accounts for work purposes – increasing the potential risks from shadow IT, including the disclosure of sensitive information.
For instance, it said 42 per cent of employees use personal email accounts for work-related matters, while some 38 per cent use personal messengers that have not been approved by their IT departments.
The study was conducted by research agency Toluna in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, with survey responses gathered from 6,017 full-time and part-time employees from 9th to 18th April 2020. — Bernama