Beware the Return to the Office

While we don’t know the exact schedule of the return to the office and the current situation looks a bit less positive than we were hoping for, at least in parts of the country, it is likely that in the next 1-3 months some folks will be heading back to the office. Not a lot at first, but some, and possibly a “rotating” some.

When that happens, what we will have computers that were operating in a digital equivalent of virus infested swamp (sorry, I am not trying to be mean but I don’t know how to say that any nicer).

Bitsight, the company that “scores” corporate security, says that home networks are 3.5 times more likely than corporate networks to have at least one malware family and 7.5 times more likely to have five or more distinct types of malware.

The survey also found 25% of the devices on home networks including PCs, printers and smart-home devices had one or more services exposed to the Internet. This includes devices such as routers and wireless access points.

Add to this that there are user owned devices in the mix.

And then we have personal use of company owned devices.

And company use of personally owned devices.

Mix all of this and reconnect those devices to the office networks.

What could possibly go wrong?

So what we are doing is taking all of these potentially infected devices and connecting them to the corporate network along with other corporate devices.

Now is the time to come up with a plan to make sure, as best we can, that the devices that we are going to allow back on the office network not infected. We have a few months to design the plan. PROBABLY!

Credit: Dark Reading