U.S. companies excel at limiting shadow IT, according to a new report

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Due to the coronavirus pandemic, companies astir the globe rapidly transitioned to distant enactment to mitigate the dispersed of COVID-19 in-house. As a result, distant workers are logging connected for the virtual workday connected their location networks and astatine times adjacent via their idiosyncratic devices, starring to caller information risks. On Tuesday, ManageEngine published the results of its 2021 Digital Readiness survey highlighting distant enactment web risks, cybersecurity planning, limiting shadiness IT and more.

"These findings bespeak that the wide displacement to a distributed workforce has forced IT to fundamentally reevaluate their information practices," said Ajay Kumar, main evangelist astatine ManageEngine, successful a property release.

Remote enactment and cybersecurity risks

Overall, the immense bulk of U.S. IT pros (81%) "believe that having distant workers has accrued their enterprise's information challenge," according to the property release, and 97% of stateside companies person taken "security actions to safeguard their data" owed to employees moving from home. Security strategies implemented to support information see "raising employees awareness" (77%), worker cybersecurity grooming (68%), "monitoring worker devices (47%), the merchandise said.

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A information of the study identifies the astir communal information threats for companies and compares determination differences successful these metrics: In order, the apical U.S. information threats are phishing (62%), endpoint web attacks (49%) and malware (39%).

Earlier this year, companies started their bureau reentry plans, but galore person paused oregon delayed these timelines owed to the delta variant. According to the ManageEngine survey, a fig of companies are making semipermanent commitments to distant enactment successful immoderate capacity. Virtually each U.S. survey respondents (96%) said they were readying to "stick with distant enactment for astatine slightest the adjacent 2 years."

Based connected the findings, North American executives are taking a little stringent attack to web information compared to businesses successful different countries. As the study points out, North America "significantly lags successful the usage of Zero Trust networks" (19%) compared to organizations successful India (49%); this stat is peculiarly pronounced erstwhile juxtaposed alongside the mean globally (31%).

SEE: How to negociate passwords: Best practices and information tips (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Interestingly, the "U.S. excelled successful limiting shadiness IT" based connected each app purchases requiring IT support (33%); according to the release, 10% supra the mean globally. On the flip side, arsenic the enforcement summary points out, astir two-thirds of North American companies "fail to power which bundle the workforce is buying and installing."

"The results should service arsenic a wake-up telephone for organizations to proactively ramp up their information measures done worker grooming and reinforcing their individuality and entree management, SIEM and unified endpoint absorption practices," Kumar said.

Also spot

• The apical keywords utilized successful phishing email taxable lines (TechRepublic)
• Security threats connected the horizon: What IT pro's request to cognize (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
• Checklist: Securing integer information (TechRepublic Premium)
• Cybersecurity and cyberwar: More must-read coverage (TechRepublic connected Flipboard)