Half of U.S. Employees Plan to Work Remote Even as Restrictions Lift
As restrictions start to lift across the U.S., many businesses are exploring how employees can return to the office. However, a new study from McAfee reveals that nearly half (47%) of employees do not want to go back to working how they were before the pandemic, with a fifth (21%) saying that they intend to remain at home for as long as possible.
Some organizations view employees returning to the office as a necessity, especially from a security standpoint. McAfee’s new study shows such concerns are valid with over half (54%) of employees saying that they have seen an increase in the number of cyberattacks in the past three months. In fact, a recent McAfee report shows that threat events to enterprises increased by 630% over the same period, with most attacks targeting collaboration services like Microsoft 365.
Having employees access to work remotely is often seen as the security weak link. Many employees have already been the target or victim of a cybercriminal attack from email phishing scams (47%) to home network attacks (22%). But, nearly half (47%) of employees say that their company isn’t currently responsible for securing their devices while they’re at home.
Businesses need to do more to protect their employees remotely, including ensuring that tools are set up so that they can keep all employees applications and systems up to date, patched, and monitored for any issues that may arise. And, employees agree, with three-quarters (76%) of employees wanting to be fully protected by their employer.
Wondering what steps to take to keep your home working environment safe? Here are a few tips to keep in mind:
- Be cautious of correspondence asking you to act. You must stay vigilant if you receive an email or text asking you to take a certain action or download software. You shouldn’t click on anything within the message. Instead, go straight to the organization’s website to prevent malicious content from phishing links.
- Keep infrastructure up to date. With an ongoing trend of vulnerabilities in consumer devices like home routers or smart home products, you should be regularly reminded to update such devices.
- Browse with security protection. Follow the security guidelines your employer has provided and use the tools they have in place. When in doubt, make sure you have comprehensive security protection, like McAfee Total Protection, which can help protect devices against malware, phishing attacks, and other threats.
