Business travelers are more vulnerable to cyber attacks and their data is more likely to be stolen by cyber criminals, the latest report by security solution provider Kaspersky has revealed. An indiscriminate behavior of senior executives while they are online, is playing into the hands of cybercriminals, the report noted.
The study from Kaspersky Lab polled 11,850 people from across Europe, Russia, Latin America, Asia Pacific and the US. It found the pressure from work to get online is clouding the judgment of business travelers when connecting to the Internet.
According to Kaspersky’s investigation, one in five people have been a target of cyber-crime while abroad, rising to almost a third (31 percent) of senior business managers. At the same time, half of people traveling for work (54 percent), and up to (62 percent) of senior executives, make no distinction between their behaviors when abroad, despite the fact they are a long way from the security of their work communications networks, and they are handling employers’ confidential data at work.
Three in five (59 percent) of people in senior roles say they try to log on as quickly as possible upon arrival abroad because there is an expectation at work that they will stay connected. By the time business travelers reach the arrivals terminal, one in six is using their work device to get online.
Almost half (48 percent) of senior managers and more than two in five (43 percent) of mid-level managers use unsecure public access Wi-Fi networks to connect their work devices when abroad. At least two in five (44 percent and 40 percent, respectively) use Wi-Fi to transmit work emails with sensitive or confidential attachments.
One reason business travelers are doing so, the report finds, is a widely held assumption their work devices are inherently more secure than private communications tools, regardless of their connectivity. Two in five (41 percent) expect their employers to have set strong security measures. This is most pronounced among business leaders (53 percent) and mid-level executives (46 percent).
Twice as many (47 percent) think that, if employers are to send staff overseas, they must accept any security risks that go with it. But a large proportion of business travelers, and particularly business leaders, are not helping with their indiscriminate behavior when abroad.
One in five (20 percent) senior executives admit to using work devices to access websites of a sensitive nature via Wi-Fi – compared to an average 12 percent. One in four (27 percent) have done the same for online banking – compared to an average 16 percent.
“This report shows us that cybercrime is a real hazard while traveling, and employees are putting confidential business information at risk. The insight provided by the report should be a red flag for corporate information security specialists, as the business travel behavior we have unearthed here presents a significant corporate data protection challenge. It’s now up to businesses to respond with appropriate security solutions, if they wish to protect themselves”, said Konstantin Voronkov, Head of Endpoint Product Management at Kaspersky Lab.
“At first, we recommend explaining the threat to employees, as awareness is the first step to protection. Another important countermeasure is security over unsafe networks, such as using VPN to access the corporate network, and email encryption. In addition, multilayered endpoint protection should be implemented, including anti-malware, exploit prevention, host-based intrusion protection and firewall, URL filtering technologies, and installation of the most up to date software and system patches. When you are out of your corporate network perimeter the most efficient, and often the only protection applicable, is that on your laptop or mobile device,” he said.