Home working and cyber security – an outbreak of unpreparedness?

Home working has been one of the long-promised freedoms of information technology. But until recently it was something that relatively few people had routinely experienced in practice (aside, perhaps, from taking work home to do in the evenings and at weekends). This situation abruptly changed in early 2020, with the Covid-19 pandemic forcing organisations to shut their doors and send staff home. Across the globe, home working wherever possible became the standard advice, and technology was the fundamental enabler of the change. That has changed. With the Covid-19 pandemic, home working became the standard advice, and technology was the fundamental enabler. Steven Furnell of the University of Nottingham and Jayesh Navin Shah of Ipsos MORI examine the extent to which organisations and their staff were prepared for the unplanned outbreak of home working, along with the increased cyberthreats that came with it.