Kaspersky: 4 of 10 WFH users in SEA struggles to "switch off" from work

10/06/2020 11:22:12 AM

Do you consider work-from-home a struggle instead of convenience? You might be part of a minority of users who have this dilemma.

As the sudden change of shift in work life has taken place in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly half-of-people – 46 percent, to be exact – who do the WFH duties in Southeast Asia found I hard to switch off after work than when they had to travel to their physical offices. This result obtained by Kaspersky's latest study named “More connected than ever before: how we build our digital comfort zones” was up by four notches than the global result of 42%.

The result said 62 percent of the featured 760 interviewees based in SEA revealed they felt unease towards the increasing amount of meetings taking place online.

The study conducted by the global cybersecurity company last May has also unmasked the worries of remote employees in the time of pandemic where the majority of the offices remain closed due to physical restrictions, in which one of the topmost concerns involve online security.

Published on its press release, Kaspersky cited two factors that might've triggered the workforce:

First is due to the nature of the confidential work they are conducting from home according to 62% of the interviewees, 13 points higher than the global result with only 49%. The second factor for 57% of the respondents is that their home technology is not as secure as their office’s technology which is nine notches higher than the world’s view at 48%. These respondents expressed their worry that using their own computers may risk the safety of their work data.

“Majority of our survey respondents from the region are working from home during this period where lockdown measures are still in place because of the pandemic. It is understandable and welcome progress that a lot of them are more concerned about their online security given that our previous research showed 52% of businesses agreed that employees are security’s weakest link,” said Yeo Siang Tiong, General Manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky.

While there were raised concerns regarding the new norms of working life, Kasperksy said there are bright spots present as 62% of the surveyed individuals from SEA professed that working from home has made them more aware of their digital security and 56% noted that their employers have provided strict instructions about protecting confidential work information online.

However, while online security has been cited as one of the heightened factors, around 42 percent of people still assume that everything is protected and safe – specifically, they hare internet connection with other people they live within shared accommodation and are not sure about the security and safety of their devices as they are not aware of how to securely use the internet.

“The current remote work set-up is here to stay. For employees’ mental wellness, it is important to create a conducive environment and work only during office hours. For enterprises, incidents such as the Wannacry attack and Bangladesh Bank Heist should remain as reminders that staff can be an attack vector exploited through old but still effective social engineering tricks. Businesses should now look into training technology that applies AI to the responses from the trainees and adapt by challenging them with an appropriate level of training and reinforcement, rather than using the same course material across everyone in a dull way,” adds Yeo.

That said, Kaspersky has introduced its Adaptive Online Training, a unique solution among security awareness training courses, combining content based on Kaspersky’s 20+ years’ experience in cybersecurity and advanced learning and development of the methodology developed by Area9 Lyceum on Rhapsode™, the world’s first four-dimensional adaptive learning platform.

Grounded in an innovative adaptive learning methodology, the cognitive-driven approach of KAOT contributes to a personalized learning experience that takes into account the abilities and needs of each and every learner. Filipino workers may find out more about this program here [https://kas.pr/su47].

Meanwhile, employees from enterprises using Kaspersky solutions can also utilize the global cybersecurity company’s Employee Purchase Program to further guard their devices. Click the hyperlinks if you're based on either Malaysia, Thailand, or Vietnam.

As for employees in the Philippines, Kaspersky's Enterprise Employee Discount Program is is available through its local distributor iSecure Networks. Interested may get in touch with Shiela Borja, marketing communications officer at iSecure Networks at 09269593725 or through their Facebook page at iSecureNetworksInc.

Kaspersky experts also share the following tips to boost the security of your home office:

• Install a reliable security solution like Kaspersky Security Cloud on all devices that handle corporate data
• Regularly update everything installed on any device that you use for work purposes
• Configure your network connection correctly. First, make sure that the connection is encrypted to keep information safe from prying eyes. You can use the router settings to select or change the type of encryption — and remember that your Wi-Fi password should be strong. 
• Change your router login and password. The default passwords for many models are not only too weak but also known across the Internet and easily searchable.
• Use a virtual private network. When you’re connected through a VPN, all of your data will be encrypted regardless of the network settings, and outsiders will not be able to read it.
• Stick to corporate resources when exchanging documents and other information. Those cloud drives, but configured for business, are generally far more reliable than the free user versions.
• Be particularly suspicious of e-mails with links. If a link to a supposed document does not point to a corporate resource, better to ignore it. 

Author: slickmaster | © 2020 The SlickMaster's Files