Intelligent CIO North America Issue 06 | Page 32

EDITOR ’ S QUESTION

HOW CAN BUSINESS LEADERS SECURELY MANAGE EMPLOYEES WORKING FROM HOME ?

Censornet ’ s recent report , Empowering the

People : Critical Security Challenges of
2020 , gathers insights from a survey of 300 cybersecurity professionals to explore the reality of security ’ s role during a global pandemic . A primary component of the report looks at the realities of the remote working culture and includes guidance from industry experts within Censornet for security teams trying to securely facilitate remote working and empower staff .
Employees engaging in dangerous web activity
During lockdown , 67 % of security professionals reported that they ’ d caught employees engaging in unsafe or unproductive activity on the web . Perhaps unsurprisingly , the most common bad behaviour was employees using streaming services at work such as Netflix or Amazon Prime ( 35 %). However , many employees are also bringing potentially harmful content onto the corporate network :
• 27 % reported that they had caught employees downloading pirated material on work devices
• 21 % said they had caught employees visiting adult sites at work
• 21 % said employees had bypassed web security to access blacklisted sites on the company network
Interestingly , security professionals admitted that they were also guilty of bending the rules and best practices of online employee behaviour , including : using entertainment streaming services at work ( 22 %), using work credentials for personal accounts such as e-commerce sites ( 22 %), downloading pirated content ( 17 %) and even visiting adult sites at work ( 11 %).
Ed Macnair , CEO of Censornet , commented : “ We were quite shocked to find that even the security employees themselves had admitted to breaking some of the cardinal rules of web security . However , at this uniquely challenging time , with an unprecedented shift to new IT practices and COVID-related cyberattacks – trying to mitigate the dangerous actions of employees is not an added complexity the security team needs .”
Employees need support in best practices in the cloud
An even higher percentage ( 76 %) reported employee behaviour in the cloud that could be putting their company at risk . The most common ( 41 %) was employees using the same password across multiple accounts . However , more serious incidents included :
• 33 % caught employees storing sensitive data in the cloud without the proper protection in place
• 26 % have found employees sharing links to documents in the cloud to third-parties without authorisation
• 23 % reported that employees had shared their cloud service logins with other people
False sense of cybersecurity ?
The survey also discovered that cybersecurity staff appeared to underestimate the risk that these activities posed to their organisation ’ s security :
• 91 % of respondents believe that their cloud security solutions are adequately protecting people at home
• 91 % also believe that their organisation ’ s cybersecurity strategy was prepared to support their colleagues working from home
32 INTELLIGENTCIO NORTH AMERICA www . intelligentcio . com