Why remote and hybrid workers are more at risk for breaches
Back in 2023, fresh off the COVID-19 pandemic, 74% of US companies supported or planned to support hybrid workers. Hybrid working is now the most common work style globally, as 87% of organizations report having a hybrid program, according to JLL Research. As hybrid work has officially transitioned from temporary necessity to longterm strategy, new cybersecurity exposures have been discovered across all employee roles.
As many employees are moving to hybrid work, the corporate network is now the internet. Gone are the days when an enterprise’s assets were all under one roof, protected by a perimeter firewall. In order to maintain productivity with employees working from remote locations, potentially all around the world, corporate resources must be accessible from anywhere. However, the internet is also shared with cybercriminals, making it challenging to maintain the accessibility of corporate data for employees while ensuring it is inaccessible to cybercriminals, preserving its integrity and confidentiality.
Hybrid workers take their corporate computers with them, connecting to networks not maintained by the company’s IT department to access business data. Home networks are not always secure. Despite enterprise deployment for official work use, default credentials remain common. CISA reports that over 80% of enterprise-connected edge devices in remote setups still use factory-default passwords, making them an easy target for criminals.
