The coronavirus pandemic has made remote work a daily reality for tens of millions of people around the world. However, it has resulted in unprecedented security challenges. [An IBM Security report highlights the security challenges faced by remote workers and their employers. According to the report, more than half of the survey participants were working remotely without new security policies in place to protect against cyber threats.

An IBM survey of 2,001 U.S. remote workers found that 80% of respondents had rarely or never worked remotely before the pandemic.

According to IBM, remote work "exposes new security risks," with almost 50% of employees saying they are concerned about cybersecurity threats when working from home.

Although 93% of new remote workers believed their employers were capable of protecting personally identifiable information, more than half (52%) worked from personal laptops, and 45% received no additional training.

The survey also showed that companies may not be doing enough to protect personally identifiable information. In fact, more than half of remote workers were not given new guidelines for handling such information, and 42% of the employees responsible for managing this data were telecommuting.

There may also be a lack of security policies regarding remote work. More than 50% of participants admitted that they were unaware of new policies covering issues such as data handling and password management.

Poor password management is also a harsh reality for many companies with remote workers: an IBM survey found that 66% of remote workers did not have new guidelines for password management and 35% reused passwords for corporate accounts. [Charles Henderson, global partner and head of IBM X-Force Red, said. [Telecommuting will be a long-lasting reality for many organizations. The security assumptions we once relied on in traditional offices may no longer suffice as employees move to new, less controlled environments."

Daniel Lewis, CEO and co-founder of cybersecurity firm Awen Collective, urged companies to educate remote teams about cybersecurity threats and ensure they are protected.

"We know from experience that most business cybersecurity incidents are caused by employees," Lewis told Tom's Guide. 'Most of them are human error, but we also see deliberate attacks from within.' [It's important for companies to ensure that you and your employees know what assets are owned by the company. Ensure that software and firmware updates can be easily loaded on all WFH devices and, most importantly, that everyone is aware of the vulnerabilities that exist.