Industry Insights with Matt Cooke

Business Email Compromise (BEC) , COVID-19 , Fraud Management & Cybercrime

Cybersecurity Awareness Training – Crucial in Remote and Hybrid Working Environments

Cybersecurity Awareness Training – Crucial in Remote and Hybrid Working Environments

Many employees now work from their home office environments for a significant portion of the workweek. While most of these workers have dedicated time and resources to set up their office in a way that is ergonomic, quiet and conducive to focusing, how many have given equal thought to the safety and strength of their Wi-Fi networks, account passwords or their social footprint?

While home is associated with peace and safety, there are several avenues that criminals can use to launch attacks into this environment, and they can be successful if people don’t expect or know how to identify them. If a Wi-Fi password is weak, for example, attackers can easily guess it and gain access to your entire network.

When setting up home Wi-Fi networks, users want to ensure they can stream movies, listen to music, log on to video calls and more with ease. It might not be high on their priority list to ensure their network has a strong password, remote administration is disabled or that the router’s firmware is up to date.

Also, employees use personal devices to access work material and personal social media—and even share devices like a laptop or tablet with several members of their household. Thus, if a user interacts with a malicious email on their personal device, it can lead to the compromise of data beyond their personal information and a breach spanning the entire organisation. This makes it especially important that your end users establish the appropriate safeguards to ensure their network, devices, accounts and data are protected and challenging for cyber criminals to “hack into”.

Proofpoint’s 2022 State of the Phish report found that at 81% of surveyed organisations more than half of their employees were working remotely (either part or full time) due to the pandemic. However, only 37% educated workers about best practices for remote working, illustrating a worrying gap in security best practice knowledge. For example, 97% of workers said they have a home Wi-Fi network, but only 60% said their network is password-protected, a major lapse in basic security hygiene.

To help users stay safe when working from home, Proofpoint’s “3 Weeks of Cybersecurity Best Practices for ‘23” program can be a first important step. It provides three weeks’ worth of cybersecurity best practices and educational assets which IT security professionals can share inside of their organizations to help people become more knowledgeable about cyber threats so they can:

  • Avoid falling for ransomware attacks
  • Stay safe when working from home
  • Remain vigilant against phishing lures


About the Author

Matt Cooke

Matt Cooke

Cybersecurity Strategist, Proofpoint

Matt Cooke is a Cybersecurity Strategist at Proofpoint, where he is responsible for driving Proofpoint’s people-centric security vision, strategy and initiatives for the EMEA region.




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