A recent survey coming from the UK and US-based security firm, Tessian, found that 56% of senior IT technicians believe their employees have started practicing poor cyber-security habits while working from home. Even more concerning is the fact that the survey found many employees that agreed with that assessment.
Nearly two in five (39%) admitted that their cyber-security practices at home were less thorough than those being practiced and preached in the office, with half admitting that this is a result of feeling less pressure from their IT departments now, much more than prior to Covid.
Henry Trevelyan-Thomas, Tessian's vice-president of Customer Success stated that "One of the main mistakes we've seen is moving company data to personal e-mail accounts."
"When you do that, it's likely you don't have any sort of two-factor authentication. This then makes it easier for attackers to exploit that data. If data is leaked, attackers compromise it and it can end up in the wrong hands."
Experts also warn of a significant increase in the number of coronavirus-themed phishing emails targeting employees that are reported by several companies around the world.
During the height of the pandemic in 2020, network security firm Barracuda Networks said it had seen a 667% increase in malicious phishing emails. Google also reported, at the time, that it was blocking over 100 million phishing emails daily.