How secure are hybrid work models?

By the end of this year, 39% of global knowledge workers will work hybrid. This number increased from 37% in 2022, according to Gartner. Given these numbers, it’s easy to understand that collaborative work, which is time spent working with your colleagues using digital tools (like email, IM, phone calls and video conferencing platforms), is increasing. Research shows that collaborative work rose by about 50% between 2011 and 2021 and now consumes 85% or more of our working weeks. But how secure is it?

How secure is hybrid?

Research suggests that 57% of workers prefer hybrid work, which not only improves their engagement, productivity, and well-being, but also causes security headaches for IT.

With employees accessing corporate resources from various locations and personal devices, the attack surface has become much broader, making it difficult for IT professionals to defend against security threats.

Balancing security and flexibility have certainly become a challenge for companies. However, with the right security solution, IT can provide employees with hassle-free access to the applications they need to get work done from anywhere, while preserving their experience and applying security policies and controls transparently in the background.

How secure are hybrid work models?

What do the studies say?

A recent study done by Citrix says that the threat level has increased with widespread remote work:

1. 74% of security decision makers claim information security procedures, systems and controls have become more complex due to widespread home working.

2. 73% of survey respondents agree that over the past 12 months, the volume of security events and data to process has increased significantly.

3. 73% of respondents believe information security teams must tolerate a higher level of acceptable risk in a hybrid, work-from-anywhere environment.

How can hybrid security be improved?

Hybrid work makes security measures more complex and increases the number of targets for attacks — making it even more difficult to protect. There is no way to change the shift towards the more flexible and convenient hybrid work model, so we have no choice but to strengthen our defense measures and monitoring systems.

Monitoring — an important security measure. According to Sapphire cyber security monitoring is the process of continuously assessing a company’s network to spot potential security risks and ensure secure data transfers. Being aware of dangers enables you to act before they occur.

Cyber monitoring gives you immediate access to illegal updates or suspicious activity on your network. Most companies hire IT pros to anticipate potential security risks and a wide range of data breaches.

Have you got an IT pro on your side?

With Rito-Technologies we can help set up a rigid IT security system with monitoring for your peace of mind.

We are an experienced IT partner that can help you maximise your business output through IT security with Windows 365, together with Microsoft Zero Trust. We enable our clients to optimise efficiencies with their IT Strategic Planning, which is guaranteed to increase your accessibility, productivity, and levels of communication with the right level of technology for business and potential customers.

With our free IT assessment, we can help you establish how you currently use IT in your business and the best IT solution for you. We can also identify areas for improvement as well as fill the gaps to present further opportunities for growth with an IT roadmap.

For more information about our IT assessment to help improve your company’s cyber security, get in touch with us at info@rito-tech.co.za or call us on 010 213 7016 and we will gladly assist you.
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