The COVID-19 pandemic forced a mass exodus from corporate offices, prompting a surge in the number of work from home staff who rely on the cloud to remain productive. This sudden shift in operations introduces many challenges to IT departments, especially with regard to data security. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Accessibility

It’s one thing for the transition to remote work to be gradual, but to have all employees work from home at once means they have to use what they have at hand. This lack of control over what devices and connections your team use to connect to your corporate network increases the risk of exposure to cybersecurity threats.

For instance, your employees’ machines and storage devices may already be carrying malware such as viruses, worms, and ransomware. If they use unsecure connections such as public Wi-Fi, then hackers can intercept transmissions and steal company data. 

And if those at home use routers without changing the default manufacturers’ usernames and passwords, then wardriving hackers can easily gain access to these devices. Even if the passwords have been changed, but the passwords are weak, hackers can guess these via brute force attacks.

Lost and stolen devices

Laptops, tablets, and smartphones are all becoming lighter and smaller every year — and what makes these more portable also makes them easier to lose or get stolen.

When devices are lost or stolen, your organization needs to immediately wipe these devices of company data and revoke their access rights to your network.

With employee devices creating more entry points for potential cyberattacks, the risk of data breaches increases.

Internal threats

Not all cyberthreats come from outside the organization. Bad actors can come in the form of corporate spies, disgruntled employees, and terminated staff whose access credentials have yet to be revoked. This means that network perimeter defenses such as firewalls are insufficient. IT administrators need to monitor your network for suspicious activity, as well as set up protections for critical data. An example of a cybersecurity measure is a zero trust protocol that limits users’ access to only the data they need to accomplish their tasks.

Data regulations compliance

Regulations such as the European Union’s GDPR require organizations to let an individual access data gathered about them and delete it if that individual requests that it be erased (provided that the request meets certain criteria). However, with data flowing out of network silos and onto personal devices and storage spaces beyond organizations’ control, complying with such regulations is very difficult.

Furthermore, with employee devices creating more entry points for potential cyberattacks, the risk of data breaches also raises the specter of fines and punitive damages. Businesses must play catch-up to put in place processes for protecting employees' personal devices to safeguard company and customer data against cyberthreats and other untoward events.

Businesses across America rely on SimplyClouds to provide them with secure cloud services that support their remote staff. To learn more about what it takes to leverage the cloud properly for your business, download our eBook.