The Security Complications of Working From Anywhere

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, people were already working away from the office for a variety of reasons. Back then, we had security tools like VPN to assist workers in connecting to corporate resources and other solutions like antivirus to protect the endpoint. Attackers see the growth of the hybrid work environment and the advancement of the already growing trend of employees working from home as an opportunity to exploit. They also know that corporate offices have the customer data, servers, applications, identity information, user credentials, and source code worth having. The data from June 2020 to June 2021 proves that attackers refocused on the opportunity, which explains why ransomware incidents increased nearly 1100%. This paper breaks apart the components that create a new environment of security complications of working from anywhere.