It must be noted that the security of employees has to be kept in mind when the employers are facing a situation of spreading the virus such as COVID-19. Also, governments around the world have forced everyone into a lockdown which is also for their health and to stop the spread of this virus. This means that businesses have to shift to Work from Home at least for those who can do so. However, the problem with Work from Home is that the majority of the companies have never tried to do it. Therefore, they are now seeing the issues its employees face while working from home.
It is also found that companies are finding that their networks are sprawling and vulnerable which means that hackers can get inside their system and extract important information which not be possible in their offices and everyone works on the same local network which is much more secure. A report mentions that “Every time an employee connects to their corporate network from home, they’re creating possible access points for hackers to exploit”.
Also, the people who have been allocated the systems from their employers are somewhat secure but even they are vulnerable. Because while those using company-provided laptops are likely protected by internal safety measures, they could still be vulnerable if their security software isn’t updated or their remote network connection isn’t perfectly configured.
One expert says that “Everyone’s attention is drawn away from cybersecurity right now, with the first priority being safety and continued operations,” which is quite understandable as well. However, “That’s certainly forced some companies to rush into allowing remote access to critical operations.”
Now, the employers have to find a balance between letting people work from home and then keeping them secure as well which will be a headache but it can be done in days or weeks from now.