Despite being the "new normal" for nearly three years, remote and hybrid work (opens in a new tab) remains a significant cybersecurity risk for organizations of all shapes and sizes, according to a new study.
A Lookout report that surveyed 3000 remote and hybrid corporate workers in the US, UK, France and Germany found that 92% still perform work tasks on their personal mobile devices. Additionally, almost half (43%) still use their personal devices, despite the company team.
In total, more than half (56%) end up doing both personal and professional tasks on the same device. Additionally, 45% use the same password for work and personal accounts, and 47% use professional software for personal task accounts.
comfort over safety
Employees sometimes sent email from their work account to a personal account because it was more convenient that way (57%) and downloaded, saved, or sent work-related documents to personal accounts for the same reason (43%) .
But the team isn't the only way remote and hybrid workers put your organization at risk. The place from which they carry out their professional activity is also a huge risk factor, since almost everyone (around nine out of ten) works outside the home.
The most popular workplaces are coworking spaces (67%), hotels (65%), outdoors (56%), someone else's home (52%), and coffee shops (51%).
A third (31%) of remote workers are less likely to follow safe security practices when working from home, according to the report.
Remote and hybrid work have largely contributed to the huge increase in cybersecurity incidents over the past three years, researchers warn.
This is mainly because these employees are no longer under the protection of corporate networks and their IT teams. Additionally, working remotely means a much broader threat landscape, with many more endpoints to protect.