Businesses and employees have benefited enormously from the introduction of remote and hybrid work, but also face significant challenges, new research finds.
A Fortinet report found that nearly two-thirds (62%) of companies have suffered a data breach in the past two to three years, attributable at least in part to remote work environments.
So the idea that remote work brings new risks to the workplace is no longer just theoretical, but proven in practice. Fortinet said there were gaps in the way work was organized that threat actors actively exploited to steal sensitive data. Typically, this data is either sold on the black market, used to launch additional attacks, or used as leverage in ransom negotiations.
training workforce
For businesses looking to maintain and grow a remote work environment, the biggest challenge is training employees. Most of these employees are not well-versed in cybersecurity and are therefore the weakest link in the security chain.To make matters worse, IT teams don’t have complete visibility into their organization’s attack surface due to the sheer number of endpoints (opens in a new tab) Connect from a different location.
IT teams struggle to implement zero-trust network access and deploy security patches due to blurred asset ownership.
These risks are real, Fortinet concluded, and many organizations still haven’t fully addressed them. However, remote work is here to stay, despite the odds, the report states. Additionally, it says CISOs and security leaders are spending increasing amounts of money on new cybersecurity solutions.
Among the different technologies they have, most decision makers choose network access control tools, antivirus programs, multi-factor authentication solutions, and cloud security solutions.
pass: venture capital (opens in a new tab)
