Organizational Cybersecurity Post The Pandemic: An Exploration of Remote Working Risks and Mitigation Strategies

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced organisations to embrace the largest remote workforce in history, yet this upheaval also brought an increasing number of cyber vulnerabilities to the fore. Organisations must remain committed to not leaving business processes, personal data, or vital infrastructure at risk, which has proved challenging for most. As remote working establishes itself as the new normal, criminals are seeking to capitalize on the widespread cybersecurity uncertainty, and succeeding. Private organisations and cybersecurity professionals must come together to establish robust solutions for home working cybersecurity.  

This investigation explores several prevalent cyber risks (private networks, public hotspots, remote desktop protocol, authentication policies, virtual private network configuration and phishing attacks) across three key threat classifications of management, technical and human factors when remote working from the perspective of twenty industry experts. These findings offer key insights to emerging vulnerabilities, while also revealing defined strategies for organisations to help mitigate these challenges.