In 2020, the popular mantra “work hard anywhere” transitioned from the defining ethos for independent workers to an operational necessity, and a cybersecurity challenge, for every company.
According to Gallup, more than 60% of all employees have started working remotely since the onset of the March 2020 pandemic. A significant portion plan to continue working off-site for the foreseeable future.
Therefore, remote work and the technologies supporting it have become mission-critical, especially with regards to industrial control systems (ICS) and other operational technology (OT), which help companies ensure continuity amidst a global pandemic, prolific natural disasters and other prominent disruptions. In a real way, remote operations capacity was the lifeline that many companies needed to weather last year’s challenges. It made industries resilient when the challenges could have been devastating.
Unfortunately, many of those challenges will remain relevant for the foreseeable future. Therefore, remote operations will play a prominent role in the future of work, giving organizations the flexibility they need to thrive under any circumstances.
The evolution of remote work as its own new operational standard has become a dominant trend, which means that organizations need to grapple with the cybersecurity risks now to ensure that they can mitigate risk and maximize value from this transition. As companies prepare for the year ahead, here are three risks worth pursuing now.
Challenge #1: People
Regardless of the workplace environment, a company’s own employees are one of its primary cybersecurity risks. The vast majority of data breaches and security incidents are caused by, in part, employee accidents.