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A recent report into cyber security risks posed by remote working environments, conducted by Radware, has revealed startling concerns by 83 per cent of C-suite managers.
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Results show that a sudden and massive shift to remote work accelerated cloud migration, but the accelerated lift and shift along with heavy reliance on service providers for security leaves blind spots.
According to the report, C-Suite Perspectives: Accelerated Cloud Migration but Lagging Security, pandemic-driven changes affected various aspects of business, 44 per cent of executives surveyed reported a negative impact on budgets, 43 per cent reported a workforce reduction, while 37 per cent reported reduced real estate footprints.
The pandemic accelerated the migration of business infrastructure and applications into the cloud. Seventy-six per cent of companies adopted cloud services faster than they had planned, while 56 per cent of respondents said that the contactless economy, e-commerce, on-demand content, video conferencing etc had a positive impact on their business.
Anna Convery-Pelletier, chief marketing officer at Radware, explained, “The transition to remote work and new online contactless business models is not temporary and is affecting the future strategy on how organisations invest in cyber security.”
Other key findings include:
- Shift to remote operations: More than 80 per cent of respondents said they believed more than 25 per cent of their employees would work remotely in the future, a sharp contrast to pre-pandemic work-from-home policies, when only 48 per cent of companies enabled more than 25 per cent of their employees do so, and 6 per cent did not enable remote work at all.
- Emergence of new revenue models to support contactless economy: Roughly two in five respondents from the retail sector said they made real estate changes - including store closures.
Many retailers faced pressure to adopt practices that ease the customer experience, such as kerbside pickup, e-commerce, and increased use of contactless payments. More than any other sector, retailers reported the need to adopt cloud or hybrid cloud environments to make their networks more resilient, 57 per cent said they plan to host their assets in either a public or private cloud environment by 2022.
The quick migration helped to maintain business operations but potentially exacerbated cyber security gaps, due to an increased attack surface.
Forty per cent of survey respondents reported an increase in cyber attacks amid the pandemic, while 32 per cent said that they relied on their cloud provider’s security services to provide security management for their public cloud assets.
“Before the pandemic, digital transformation was a long-term strategic goal for most businesses. On-demand content consumption, contactless payments, curbside pickups and remote work forces are now business imperatives. Executives must revisit what they’ve implemented to ensure that a lack of cyber security planning does not undermine their goals,” said Michael O’Malley, vice president of market strategy for Radware.
Many retailers faced pressure to adopt practices that ease the customer experience, such as kerbside pickup, e-commerce, and increased use of contactless payments. More than any other sector, retailers reported the need to adopt cloud or hybrid cloud environments to make their networks more resilient, and 57 per cent said they plan to host their assets in either a public or private cloud environment by 2022.
Each year, Radware publishes the findings and analysis of a survey of senior executives to better understand the perceptions of current cyber security challenges and opportunities for C-suite level executives.
This year Radware worked with Enterprise Management Associates to conduct the global, online survey of 260 executives in July 2020 with nearly equal distribution of the respondents from AMER, EMEA and APAC. The respondents represent a wide range of industries with a minimum revenue of $250 million and that have 1,000-9,999 employees.
Radware is a global leader of cyber security and application delivery solutions for physical, cloud and software defined data centres. Its award-winning solutions portfolio secures the digital experience by providing infrastructure, application, and corporate IT protection and availability services to enterprises globally.
The company’s solutions empower more than 12,500 enterprise and carrier customers worldwide to adapt to market challenges quickly, maintain business continuity and achieve maximum productivity while keeping costs down.
