A recent study conducted by the research firm Pulse on behalf of Sungard Availability Services (Sungard AS) suggests that while 75% of organizations currently support a hybrid work model of allowing workers to work both in and outside of an office, only 20% of companies believe that it has the necessary security infrastructure to support that model for the long term. On the plus side, apparently almost every responding company acknowledged the need to update their business continuity plans in order to account for a more permanent remote working environment.
In a statement issued by Sunguard AS, Shawn Burke, its Global Chief Security Officer, advised companies that now is the time to modernize their infrastructure and security in order to support a long-term remote workforce, and urged that the use of multi-factor authentication shouldn’t be optional.
If anything, this study (and others similar to it) highlight that there are still companies that are underprepared to deal with the realities that the threat of a data security or ransomware event is real and is not going to recede whether or not employees ever fully return to office work environments.