Majority of Businesses Still Have Remote Working Cybersecurity Concerns One Year Into the Pandemic
Despite being over a year into remote working and looking ahead to likely shifts to hybrid remote/in-office working models, four fifths (82%) of businesses still remain concerned about the security risks of employees working remotely.
This is just one of the key insights from the 2021 Thales Global Data Threat Report which reveals that managing security risks is undoubtedly getting more challenging, with nearly half (47%) of businesses seeing an increase in the volume, severity, and/or scope of cyberattacks in the past 12 months.
Attacks On The Rise
In fact, of those who have ever experienced a breach, two in five (41%) happened in the last year. This number has nearly doubled from 21% in 2019, marking a significant shift in the threat posed.
Globally, malware (54%) is the leading source of security attacks, followed by ransomware (48%), and phishing (41%). Yet, when it comes to how attacks occur, the message is clear: internal threats and human error are still of great concern to industry. A third of businesses stated that malicious insiders (35%) and human error (31%) are the greatest risks to them, followed by external attackers (22%).
Despite the increased risk remote working has posed to enterprises throughout the pandemic, nearly half (46%) of businesses report that their security infrastructure was not prepared to handle the risks caused by Covid-19. In fact, only one in five (20%) of organizations believe it was very prepared.
Multiple Industries at Risk
This lack of protection is affecting some industries more than others it seems, with just under two thirds (61%) of retailers surveyed experiencing a breach or failing an audit involving data and applications stored in the cloud in the past year – the most of any industry surveyed. Over half of organizations in the legal (57%), call center (55%), transportation (54%), and telecommunications (52%) sectors also suffered the same fate in the last 12 months.