Do you feel that your workload is heavier now that you’re working from home? Do you find it challenging to balance your professional life and personal life because of the current remote work set-up? Kaspersky’s fresh research reveals you are not alone.
The latest study titled “More connected than ever before: how we build our digital comfort zones” found out that 46% of respondents from Southeast Asia (SEA) find it harder to switch off after work than when they had to travel to their physical offices. This is four notches higher than the global result of 42%. A majority of them (62%) also disclosed their unease towards the increasing amount of meetings taking place online.
Conducted by the global cybersecurity company among 760 interviewees from SEA last May, the survey also unmasked the worries of remote employees in the time of pandemic where majority of the offices remain closed due to physical restrictions. Amongst these heightened concerns are about their online security. This was triggered by two factors.
Note: The study was conducted by research agency Sapio in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, DACH, France, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the UAE, the UK and the US, and survey responses were gathered
First is due to the nature of the confidential work they are conducting from home according to 62% of the interviewees, 13 points higher than the global result with only 49%. The second factor for 57% of the respondents is that their home technology is not as secure as their office’s technology which is nine notches higher that the world’s view at 48%. These respondents expressed their worry that using their own computers may risk the safety of their work data.
“Majority of our survey respondents from the region are working from home during this period where lockdown measures are still in place because of the pandemic. It is understandable and a welcome progress that a lot of them are more concerned about their online security given that our previous research showed 52% of businesses agreed that employees are security’s weakest link,” comments Yeo Siang Tiong, General Manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky.
There are bright spots, though, as 62% of the surveyed individuals from SEA professed that working from home has made them more aware of their digital security and 56% noted that their employers have provided strict instructions about protecting confidential work information online.
However, there are still over 4-in-10 who shrug off security and assume that everything is protected and safe. Almost half (42%) also confessed that they share internet connection with other people they live with in shared accommodation and are not sure about the security and safety of their devices as they are not aware on how to securely use the internet.
“The current remote work set-up is here to stay. For employees’ mental wellness, it is important to create a conducive environment and work only during office hours. For enterprises, incidents such as the Wannacry attack and the Bangladesh Bank Heist should remain as reminders that staff can be an attack vector exploited through old but still effective social engineering tricks. Businesses should now look into training technology that applies AI to the responses from the trainees and adapt by challenging them with appropriate level of training and reinforcement, rather than using the same course material across everyone in a dull way,” adds Yeo.
Kaspersky Adaptive Online Training (KAOT) is a unique solution among security awareness training courses, combining content based on Kaspersky’s 20+ years’ experience in cybersecurity and advanced learning and development methodology developed by Area9 Lyceum on Rhapsode™, the world’s first four-dimensional adaptive learning platform.
Kaspersky experts also share the following tips to boost the security of your home office:
- Install a reliable security solution like Kaspersky Security Cloud on all devices that handle corporate data
- Regularly update everything installed on any device that you use for work purposes
- Configure your network connection correctly. First, make sure that the connection is encrypted to keep information safe from prying eyes. You can use the router settings to select or change the type of encryption — and remember that your Wi-Fi password should be strong.
- Change your router login and password. The default passwords for many models are not only too weak, but also known across the Internet and easily searchable.
- Use a virtual private network. When you’re connected through a VPN, all of your data will be encrypted regardless of the network settings, and outsiders will not be able to read it.
- Stick to corporate resources when exchanging documents and other information. Those cloud drives, but configured for business, are generally far more reliable than the free user versions.
- Be particularly suspicious of e-mails with links. If a link to a supposed document does not point to a corporate resource, better to ignore it.