Office workers understand cyber risk but still don't change their behavior

Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of office workers have experienced a data breach, yet 12 percent say nothing will make them take cyber security more seriously, and a third won't take extra precautions.

A survey of over 2,000 UK office staff from BlueFort Security finds 34 percent believe cybersecurity awareness is the biggest issue when it comes to hybrid working, and 33 percent cite personal use of company devices as another significant risk.

They also believe that managing cyber risk in the future will only become more complicated. The reasons for this include the threat surface becoming wider and more disparate (39 percent), managing a remote workforce is more difficult (35 percent), and it will be less clear where endpoints are (26 percent).

"It's frustrating that despite being aware of the risks, so many office workers are seemingly unwilling to make even small changes in their behavior to help their largely overworked and under-resourced cybersecurity colleagues," says Ian Jennings, co-founder and managing director at BlueFort. "And the fact that many have fallen victim to a cybercrime themselves makes the situation so much worse. Given it's Insider Threat Awareness Month right now, the irony of the survey results is not lost on me."

Employees continue to indulge in risky behaviors, 30 percent admit that they have used their company device for personal reasons since working from home, and 23 percent say that they have downloaded non-work-related files since working from home.

In addition 23 percent admit that they haven’t backed up files onto the company system. 22 percent say that they have taken home company devices without the company’s knowledge and almost 1 in 5 (18 percent) have actually lost company devices since they've been working from home.

Jennings adds, "The results of this latest study underline the importance of continued cybersecurity education, combined with technology that protects sensitive data wherever it is, be that on an end-user's device, stored on-premise, hosted in the cloud, and increasingly nowadays being shared via an online collaboration tool."

Read more on the BlueFort blog.

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