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Organisations have been forced to adapt rapidly over the past few months as government lockdowns kept most workers to their homes. For many, the changes they\u2019ve made may even become permanent as more distributed working becomes the norm. This has major implications for cybersecurity. Employees are often described as the weakest link in the corporate security chain, so do they become an even greater liability when working from home?<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, a major new study from Trend Micro finds that, although many have become more cyber-aware during lockdown, bad habits persist. CISOs looking to ramp up user awareness training may get a better return on investment if they try to personalize strategies according to specific user personas.<\/p>\n
What we found<\/strong><\/p>\n We polled 13,200 remote workers across 27 countries to compile the Head in the Clouds study. It reveals that 72% feel more conscious of their organisation\u2019s cybersecurity policies since lockdown began, 85% claim they take IT instructions seriously, and 81% agree that cybersecurity is partly their responsibility. Nearly two-thirds (64%) even admit that using non-work apps on a corporate device is a risk.<\/p>\n Yet in spite of these lockdown learnings, many employees are more preoccupied by productivity. Over half (56%) admit using a non-work app on a corporate device, and 66% have uploaded corporate data to it; 39% of respondents \u201coften\u201d or \u201calways\u201d access corporate data from a personal device; and 29% feel they can get away with using a non-work app, as IT-backed solutions are \u201cnonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n This is a recipe for shadow IT and escalating levels of cyber-risk. It also illustrates that current approaches to user awareness training are falling short. In fact, many employees seem to be aware of what best practice looks like, they just choose not to follow it.<\/p>\n
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