IBM Security Survey: Most Remote Employees Lack Cyber Guidelines -

Approximately 80 percent of U.S. employees either rarely worked or did not work from home prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and more than half are now doing so without security policies to help guide them, according to the IBM Security "Work from Home Survey."

Other notable IBM survey results included:

93 percent of newly working remotely Americans are confident in their organization's ability to keep personally identifiable information (PII) secure while working remotely, and more than half have not been provided with new guidelines on how to handle PII while working from home.

66 percent have not been provided with new password management guidelines.

More than 50 percent are unaware of any new policies related to customer data handling and password management.

52 percent are using their personal laptops for work.

45 percent have not received any new training.

Many newly working remotely Americans lack security guidance, direction and policies, the IBM survey revealed. But, tools and resources are available to help remote workers securely manage data.

IBM X-Force Red Expands Remote Work Security Testing Practice

To help organizations protect remote workers and data, IBM X-Force Red has expanded its security testing practice, the company stated. In doing so, IBM X-Force Red enables organizations to:

Leverage its Adversary Simulation services with remote work scenarios to test the detection and response effectiveness of remote blue teams and their incident response playbooks.

Use application penetration tests to analyze the security and business controls of remote access applications, collaboration tools and call center management applications.

Perform phishing and social engineering exercises to pinpoint remote employees' weaknesses.

The expanded IBM X-Force Red security practice also helps organizations design secure frameworks for remote employees, IBM indicated. That way, the practice empowers organizations to secure their customer and employee data remotely and minimize risk across video conferencing and file sharing platforms.