IT Pros Feel #COVID19 Pressure as 66% Cite Increased Security Risks
IT professionals have been placed under extreme pressure to support mass home working over the past few months, with two-thirds reporting an increase in security issues, according to Ivanti.
The endpoint security firm polled 1600 global IT professionals to better understand their changing workload during recent government-mandated lockdowns.
Of those who cited security challenges, malicious emails (58%), non-compliant employee behavior (45%) and an increase in software vulnerabilities (31%) came out top.
Yet the bigger picture is that IT teams have been stretched on an almost unprecedented scale due to the demands of a newly distributed workforce.
For 63% of those interviewed, IT workloads increased 37% since remote working began. The most common requests include VPN issues (74%), video conferencing (56%), bandwidth constraints (48%), password resets (47%) and messaging issues (47%).
Specifically, they have been forced to do things like increase VPN access to more employees (70%), source, set up and distribute extra devices (54%) and create more “how to” articles for staff (52%).
Against this backdrop, a lack of communication was cited as a top challenge by 20% of respondents.
This extra workload is somewhat understandable, given that respondents have seen a 93% increase on average in remote workers. More than a third of respondents said 100% of employees are now working from outside the office.
“Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic has indeed placed an unprecedented demand on IT teams as they work to balance security and user productivity for the new remote workforce,” said Phil Richards, chief security officer at Ivanti.
“It’s a shift we see first-hand at Ivanti. To ease the new IT workload, we found that by employing more IT service automation and asset management optimization our IT staff are better equipped to support users’ needs, while also taking necessary actions to mitigate security risk. As a result, we are able to ensure employees can remain both productive and safe.”
Despite the extra lockdown-related workload, IT professionals pointed to the lack of a commute (44%) and more flexible working hours (19%) as benefits, and 16% said they have been more productive.
This post IT Pros Feel #COVID19 Pressure as 66% Cite Increased Security Risks originally appeared on InfoSecurity Magazine.
