Fujitsu Urges Businesses to Make Cyber Security a Priority: Corporate Security is Failing to Keep Pace with the New Normal

Fujitsu today warns that many organizations may have accidentally created a culture where employees are more reluctant than ever to report potential security issues – with extended work from home policies bringing the issue to the fore.

The pandemic has intensified existing security challenges to breaking point. With many knowledge workers now marking a full year since they started working remotely, Fujitsu’s findings suggest that many employees feel more isolated than ever. Working remotely, employees feel less able to ask a workmate for casual advice around security issues – such as “does this email look suspicious to you” – but are reluctant to formally raise potential security issues.

New data from a report sponsored by Fujitsu suggests that organizations are at risk from a toxic combination of increased attack surfaces and widespread employee reluctance to report potential security incidents. With 48% of non-technical employees reluctant to report any potential threats for fear of possible recriminations, this means enterprises are massively exposed.

The worldwide spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus forced many organizations to scramble and introduce short-term measures to enable work from home – leading to an uptick in the use of cloud services. Many organizations also relaxed restrictions on access to corporate networks and data via personal devices and unsecured home networks. Consequently, many businesses have also seen their exposure to cyber-attacks increase exponentially – leaving IT leaders with a great deal of work to do.

To understand the extent to which international businesses recognize the challenge they face by extended work from home, Fujitsu surveyed 331 senior executives across organizations in 14 countries¹. Respondents came from five broad industry groups: financial services, retail, manufacturing and automotive, energy and utilities, and central/federal government.

Among the key findings:

• • 54% are unable to ensure that security policies kept pace with significant changes. This suggests that businesses are leaving themselves unnecessarily exposed to cyber crime – a fact supported by the increase in incidents reported by organizations such as the UK National Cyber Security Centre².
• • Some 48% of non-technical employees are reluctant to report any security threats they find. That number drops to 37% among technical employees – but still highlights a widespread reluctance to take appropriate action – suggesting that implementing cultural change should be a business priority for the year ahead.

Tim White, Corporate Executive Officer, SVP, Head of Global Delivery Group and Global Service Delivery Unit at Fujitsu, comments: “For many organizations, cyber security was forced into the back seat in the race to enable remote working at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic – and in too many cases, these makeshift, temporary arrangements are still in place, a year later. Therefore, too many organizations are leaving themselves wide open to cyber-attacks. Attack surfaces have increased, and employees are reluctant to report potential incidents. We need an integrated approach to implementing workplace change – encompassing workplace productivity tools as well as wrap-around security combined with a focus on cultural change.”

Fujitsu’s advanced security solutions help businesses and public agencies minimize disruption and maintain business continuity by strengthening their security strategy and operations across every level of an organization. This means intelligence-led solutions supported by an integrated and collaborative approach to cyber security challenges – all delivered to the highest security standards. This enables organizations to adopt a security model that retains the elasticity necessary to operate in the current conditions and offers security without hindering business growth.