Companies are allowing their workers to operate remotely in an effort to “flatten the curve” of spreading the coronavirus, but this decision comes at a cost. A remote workforce would potentially slow down the detection of a data breach of the company networks and it increases the overall costs of cybersecurity – including privacy violations and lawyers.
According to IBM’s survey during the rise of remote work, it was found that a majority of companies have transitioned to remote work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And for those companies that have already made the move to having their employees working remotely have come to acknowledge that this change will increase the time that it would take to identify and contain a data breach. In the survey, 70% of respondents said that the transition to remote work would raise the cost of a data breach overall.
Workers operating remotely on mobile devices and on their own or public networks subject their employers to unforeseen cybersecurity risks. The remote work pattern introduces risk and vulnerabilities when employees are forced or allowed to work from home because the company has little supervision, monitoring, and control over what the workforce is doing from home.
Certainly, the best way to monitor for cyber attacks or suspicious behavior is to reserve all business activity for company-owned devices and networks. However, a decentralized monitoring program can impede with compliance and regulations if a breach occurs.
If you rely on a worker to detect a data breach while they are working remotely, it can take longer to detect such a breach than if they were working on the company network. This delay in detection could have an impact on the company’s compliance with notification laws – some states require a very timely notification to affected customers.
Ideally, your company would be quick to respond to a data breach, but in these unprecedented times, you may not find out about a data breach until much later as your employees don’t have the network security that they usually have. Don’t find yourself having to pay fines for not being in compliance. To best prepare, do your research on what is expected of your company during these times if you were to have a data breach. But the number one thing that your company can do is to educate your employees on best practices to keep them and your company secure during these times. If you need some ideas on best practices, here are a few to get you started.
LibertyID is the leader in identity theft restoration, having restored the identities of tens of thousands of individuals without fail. If you retain personal information on your customers, now is the time to get data breach planning and a response program in place with our LibertyID for Small Business data breach preparation program. With LibertyID Enterprise you can now add value to existing products, services, or relationships by covering your customers, employees, or members with LibertyID’s fully managed identity theft restoration service—at a fraction of our retail price—with no enrollment and no file sharing. We have no direct communication with your group members–until they need us.
Call us now for a no obligation proposal at 844-411-LIBERTY (844-411-5423).