Cisco warns on unsafe remote access

By Brian Turner

Cisco have warned on the security of remote access workers, after a study they commissioned into the habits of remote workers found unsafe networking practices were rife.

Common insecure activities included:

• sharing work computers with non-employees,
• opening unknown e-mails
• hijacking neighbors’ wireless networks

This was despite the fact that the majority of the workers in the survey considered themselves very aware of the dangers of insecure computer use, as well as the vulnerabilities of their habits.
The study covered remote access workers across the globe, and found that insecure networking was especially common in Asia, with Chinese networkers more likely to share their work computers with others, while in Japan workers were much more likely to use a shared PC than their own.

As Cisco point out:

It only takes one security breach. For large enterprises with tens of thousands of workers, especially those with global workforces and differing business cultures, the potential risk is even more challenging.