New Security Challenges for Organizations Having Larger Remote Workforces

At the outset of the global coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many organizations decided to enforce social distancing by requiring that their employees begin working from home. This decision changed the fundamental way in which many employees were accustomed to working. It also created new security challenges for organizations that had larger remote workforces.

Tripwire wanted to learn the specifics of these challenges, so it commissioned Dimensional Research to 345 IT security professionals about them in mid-April 2020. As reported by Business Wire, a majority of respondents (58%) indicated that employee home network security was one of their areas of higher concern followed by increased attacks (45%), difficulties in keeping remote systems configured securely (41%) and obstacles with keeping remote systems compliant (38%). Reflecting on the difficulties of keeping remote workers safe, 89% of survey participants said their job was harder as a result of the new work-from-home policy. Nearly half (49%) blatantly said they couldn’t effectively secure employees’ home offices, leading 65% of respondents to admit their belief that their security was worse because of COVID-19.