Remote work reduced security surveillance, report claims

According to a report commissioned by Axonius and conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group, the rapid shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant challenges for companies in maintaining visibility into their security threats. The study surveyed 500 IT and security decision makers across various regions, including North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region.

The report indicates that 79% of enterprise security officials encountered widening visibility gaps in cloud infrastructure, end-user devices, and IoT environments. Specifically, 75% of security officials reported widening visibility gaps in end-user devices, 79% in cloud infrastructure, and 79% in IoT environments.

The shift to remote work has resulted in a change in the focus of security monitoring from the perimeter to the behaviours of individuals (or their accounts) when interacting with systems and applications. Companies have had difficulties monitoring their systems for security threats, as stated by Nathan Burke, chief marketing officer at Axonius.

Security tools that work for on-premises environments may not be able to move at the speed required for a cloud environment, according to Burke. As a result, companies have had to move their various streams of data into multiple buckets as the environment became increasingly complex. The report highlights the difficulties companies have faced in moving their various streams of data into multiple buckets as the environment became increasingly complex.

The question of whether a company is cloud, on-premises, or hybrid is less relevant now, as it's more about how cloud a company is. This shift has made it more challenging for companies to manage security in an environment where the number of remote workers has to be scaled over long periods of time, according to research from Gartner.

The report states that 3.3 times more security incidents occurred due to these widening visibility gaps. However, the search results do not provide specific information about which companies were involved in the Enterprise Strategy Group report commissioned by Axonius.

Despite these challenges, about three-quarters of organizations expect the number of remote workers at companies to increase even after pandemic recovery begins. Four of every five respondents said their companies will invest more money into securing corporate assets.

In conclusion, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for companies to adapt their security strategies to the remote work environment. As the shift to cloud-based work continues, companies must invest in tools and strategies that can keep pace with the changing landscape and provide visibility into security threats across all endpoints and environments.