Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses have been moving their staff members into remote working environments, allowing workers to do their jobs from the comforts of their homes. However, this situation has led to various problems, especially when it comes to data breaches. Many believe that remote work will put a company at a much higher risk of digital security compromises due to factors they have limited or no control over. As such, problems like data breaches are likely to occur, and these can be expensive to deal with.
If you are a business owner curious to know how remote work can increase the risk of a data breach and what you can do to reduce the likelihood of such a problem, keep on reading.
Remote work and data breaches
Plenty of experts say that remote work will make data breaches much more expensive. This was confirmed by IBM when they released a “cost of a data breach” report in 2020, showing an increase in costs. There are many reasons for this trend.
First, because employees are working away from their usual workplaces, companies cannot easily track their staff’s activities. This means that catching an issue before it gets worse is much more of a challenge.
Second, such an incident will also hinder the activities of the employees. Data breaches can cause disruption at work, hurting overall productivity and even complete halting operations. To add to all of that, the time it takes for a company to respond to a remote incident is also much longer. This leads to much higher costs, as not only are companies focused on looking for problems, but it is taking them much longer to do so.
Simply put, data breaches are much harder to detect and address in remote work setups. Any problems that arise can take a while before they are eliminated, which can increase the risks of other issues, such as penalties, loss of customers, and so on.
Reducing the cost of data breaches
Remote work can indeed make data breaches much more costly. However, there are still ways to reduce that cost. For instance, utilizing AI and analytics can help companies quickly identify common data breaches and immediately respond to them, lowering costs.
One of the most effective ways to reduce the cost of breaches is to have response plans in place, to begin with. When response teams are equipped with the right plans and tools, identifying data breaches becomes much quicker and easier, saving plenty of money in the long run. This also helps avoid worse issues that can lead to even more costs. However, there is one downside to this tactic: Creating and managing response plans can be challenging.
Conclusion
Data breaches are expensive to companies, and with remote work becoming the norm, costs are just going to skyrocket. Fortunately, with the right measures like in place, you can quickly identify these problems and easily fix them, helping your company save plenty of cash.
That being said, you might not have the resources to implement such measures successfully. For that reason, we highly recommend working with an IT support provider to give you access to these tools and give you the protection you need!
We are IT support specialists in the UK that offer various services to satisfy your IT needs. If you are looking for managed IT support to help tackle data breaches, contact us today and make an appointment!