Home work concerns – Bitglass reports 41pc are not secure

Bitglass has released its 2020 Remote Work Report, analysing how organisations have adjusted to supporting remote workers. It shows organisations struggling to adjust to the new normal, with 41% having taken no steps to expand secure access for the remote workforce.

Fifty percent of respondents cite proper equipment as the biggest impediment to doing so. Consequently, 65% of organisations now enable personal devices to access managed applications.

Asked about their primary concerns over securing employees working remotely, 65% said securing network access, followed by securing access to SaaS apps like Slack (55%) and bring your own device/personal devices (55%).

For their most worrying threat vectors for remote work, respondents cited malware (72%) and unauthorised user access (59%).

“This research indicates that many organisations are not implementing the security measures necessary to protect their data in the current business environment,” said Anurag Kahol, CTO of Bitglass.

“For example, while respondents said the pandemic has accelerated the migration of user workflows and applications to the cloud, most are not employing cloud security solutions like single sign-on (SSO), data loss prevention, zero trust network access, or cloud access security brokers.

“On top of that, 84% of organisations reported that they are likely to continue to support remote work capabilities even after stay at home orders are lifted. To do this safely, they must prioritise securing data in any app, any device, anywhere in the world.”

Key findings include:

 Malware is the most concerning threat vector, with 72% of respondents citing it as their top concern.

  • From a remote work perspective, the application types that organisations are most concerned about securing include file sharing (68%), web applications (47%), and video conferencing (45%).
  • At 77%, anti-malware is the most-used tool to secure remote work. However, this and other tools like single sign-on (45%), data loss prevention (18%), and user and entity behaviour analytics (11%) are still not deployed widely enough.
  • 63% of respondents said that remote work was likely to impact their compliance with regulatory mandates; 50% named GDPR, specifically.

To see all of the findings, download the full report here:

https://pages.bitglass.com/CD-FY20Q2-RemoteWorkforceReport_LP.html?&utm_source=pr