Use of unregistered devices increases risks around hybrid work: Cisco survey

More than 9 in 10 (96 percent) respondents in Vietnam say their employees are using unregistered devices to log into work platforms. About 72 percent say their employees spend more than 10 percent of the day working from these unregistered devices.

This risk associated with such a practice is recognized by security leaders with 93 percent of respondents in Vietnam saying logging in remotely for hybrid work has increased the likelihood of occurrence of cybersecurity incidents.

This scenario is further complicated as employees are logging into work from multiple networks across their homes, local coffee shops, and even supermarkets. About 91 percent of respondents in Vietnam say their employees use at least two networks for logging into work, and 28 percent say their employees use more than five networks.

The report titled"My Location, My Device: Hybrid work’s new cybersecurity challenge", surveyed 6,700 security professionals from 27 countries, including 150 security professionals from Vietnam. It highlights concerns of security professionals around the use of unregistered devices and potentially unsecured networks to access work platforms and the risks associated with such behaviors.

"As hybrid work becomes the norm, companies are empowering their employees to work from anywhere. While this has brought many benefits, it is also opening new challenges, especially on the cybersecurity front, as hackers can now target employees beyond traditional corporate network perimeters. To make hybrid work truly successful in the long run, organizations need to protect their business with security resilience. This includes establishing visibility on their networks, users, endpoints, and applications to acquire insights into access behaviors, leveraging these insights to detect threats, and harnessing threat intelligence to respond against them on-premises or in the cloud,” Director, Cybersecurity, Cisco ASEAN Juan Huat Koo said.

The use of unregistered devices is adding a new layer of challenge for security professionals as they tackle complexities in the current threat landscape. More than 7 out of 10 respondents in Vietnam said they experienced a cybersecurity incident in the past 12 months. The top three types of attacks suffered were malware, data leaks, and phishing.

Among those who suffered an incident, 73 percent said it cost them at least US$100,000, and 34 percent said it cost them at least US$500,000.

The report also found 92 percent of the security leaders in Vietnam stating that cybersecurity incidents are likely to disrupt their businesses in the next 12-24 months. The bright side is that they are gearing up to protect themselves from internal and external threats.

With the challenges well recognized, 93 percent of security leaders in Vietnam expect their organization to increase its cybersecurity budget by more than 10 percent over the next year, and almost all (99 percent) expect upgrades to IT infrastructure in the next 12-24 months.

“As connections between people, devices, and data multiply in a hybrid work world, it is critical for businesses to move away from stand-alone security to security resilience which looks at detection, response, and recovery on a single, integrated platform. Security will be a team sport. Businesses need to educate their workforce on security best practices then use technology as the eyes and ears of the network, leverage actionable intelligence to take the right action where it’s most important, and automate that response so they can emerge stronger from threats,” said Thuy Thi Le Luong, Managing Director, Cisco Vietnam.