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A new report has revealed that when it comes to summer, everyone likes to relax — and that includes how they work and how secure those practices are.
The new findings from security company ThreatX come during the northern hemisphere’s summer and are based on polling of workers in the US and UK, but the data scans for IT workers here in Australia, as well.
In the summer months, as workers go on vacation or may be tempted to work from the pub rather than from the home office (we’ve all been there, I’m sure), the threat posed by lax bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies increases immensely.
It turns out that 55 per cent of workers polled use their personal smartphone for work over the summer, with corporate phones rating at just above 15 per cent. The same figure goes for laptops, with personal devices being preferred over those supplied by work.
The other surprising fact arising from the survey is that 45 per cent of respondents said their workplace utterly neglects to direct their employees to take any extra security measures over the summer months. Worse, only 24 per cent of those polled in the UK have received any security training at all, and in the US, it’s worse still — only 17 per cent of those in the US have gotten training in how to maintain company security.
And with summer in full swing, with all the fun in the sun (and here in the southern hemisphere, you also have Christmas holidays to contend with), a third of people find themselves thinking less about security than at any other time of the year.
Further, 38 per cent of people don’t even tell their employers where they may be working from. Forty per cent use public Wi-Fi or cellular connections for day-to-day work, while 44 per cent find themselves transferring work documents onto personal devices over the hotter months.
“The data offers a better understanding of how employees during the summer are inadvertently increasing API and application risk with loosened cyber security practices,” the report said. “The results showcase how organisations, and specifically IT teams, are struggling to monitor and enforce BYOD (bring your own device) policies during summer months when more employees are travelling or working remotely.”
So, employers? Even though Australia is in the depths of winter right now, it might be time to start putting together a plan to keep your employees and the data and machines they use as we all look forward to a long hot summer.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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