New research has revealed that 86 per cent of organisations said their biggest IT challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic was moving to mass remote working, and their biggest security concern was maintaining VPN capacity for staff.

Check Point Software Technologies surveyed over 270 IT and security professionals globally, finding that 62 per cent of respondents said their main concern during initial lockdowns was maintaining secure remote access and VPN capacity for staff, followed by preventing social engineering attacks (47 per cent) and securing staff endpoints and home networks (52 per cent).

While 65 per cent of respondents said their company blocks unmanaged PCs from corporate VPNs, just 29 per cent deploy endpoint security on employees’ home PCs, and only 35 per cent run compliance checks.

A further 42 per cent said their company invests in cyber security training, with 79 per cent of respondents stating their main priority was tightening security and preventing attacks as employees continue to work flexibly from home.

The survey showed that 43 per cent plan to implement mobile security solutions, and 39 per cent plan to consolidate their security estates to help eliminate ‘blind spots’ across their enlarged network perimeters.

Over the next 12 years, three quarters of respondents said their biggest concern was an increase in cyber attacks, especially phishing and social engineering exploits, while 51 per cent said that attacks on unmanaged home endpoints was a concern, followed by attacks against employee mobile devices (33 per cent).

“Organisations had to restructure their network and security fabrics almost overnight to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, and doing this inevitably meant that security gaps opened up, increasing their attack surface and creating new opportunities for criminals,” said Ian Porteous, regional director for security engineering for Check Point.

“Now that we are moving towards a ‘new normal’ way of working as lockdowns lift globally, organisations need to close off those security gaps and secure their networks, from employees’ home PCs and mobiles to the enterprise data centre, with a holistic, end-to-end security architecture.

In April, a survey by Check Point showed that organisations were being hit by a ‘perfect storm’ of increased cyber attacks, while having to manage the massive and rapid changes to their networks and employee working practices during the pandemic.

At that stage, 71 per cent of respondents reported an increase in cyber attacks during February and March, with 95 per cent saying they faced added IT security challenges with provision of large-scale remote access for employees, as well as managing shadow IT usage.

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