Top 6 Security Threats Targeting Remote Workers

Now that they've gotten a taste of remote work, employees increasingly prefer to keep it up. Indeed, a recent Gallup study shows that 91% of Americans working remotely hope to continue working from home after the pandemic.

Remote work offers great benefits, like reduced commute time, increased freedom, and more time to spend with loved ones. But there can be security downsides if sufficient controls are not in place to protect remote workers against the digital threats that come with working via unsecured connections.

"Being on a home network lacks the layered network security of the company environment," says Matthew Ulery, chief product officer at SecureAuth. Remote work itself is not new, but the dramatic shift to working from home over the past two years means there are more security-naive people who are not in the office, he adds.

Not all security threats are the fault of technology. Much of it also comes from human error.

"Remote work greatly exacerbates human-activated risk," says Robin Bell, CISO at Egress. "People are working in more distracting environments where they may have to answer the door for deliveries or might multitask with household chores. That means mistakes are more likely to happen, like sending an email to the wrong recipient or falling for a malicious email attack."

Recent research by Egress found that 77% of IT leaders said they have seen an increase in security compromises since going remote two years ago.

As a security pro, what do you need to be looking out for? Here are the top six such security threats faced by remote workers and how employees and employers can minimize them.