Security vs. Flexibility: Striking a Balance in the Pandemic Era

An organization's reputation is largely dependent on the work culture it provides to its employees. This is the reason, “flexibility” is becoming an inherent part of an employer's support to its employees. Due to the unprecedented outbreak of novel corona virus (COVID-19), most companies have adopted flexibility of working from anywhere, for their employees. This digital transformation took place almost instantaneously. Hence, neither the employees, nor the employers were fully prepared for this situation. This definitely makes our lives convenient. But there exists another side of the coin which is concerned with the security issues pertaining to use of personal networks and devices. The home network devices have not been configured to be secure in line with the employer's requirements. That is the reason, attackers have a larger surface to get their hands dirty on. This paper exhaustively describes the holistic view of security issues and challenges faced by employees as well as employers in remote working paradigm. This paper emphasizes on the cybersecurity threats which have emerged in this pandemic era. The work presents the challenges faced by the employees as well as their employers in these tough times. Then this paper discusses the sudden rise in volumes of cyber-attacks between January 2020 to March 2020. The company's evaluation of critical threats in the on-site working paradigm versus the remote working paradigm have also been described. Next, it describes the risks which might occur in the near future of the COVID-19 impacted world. Finally, the paper proposes some of the ways in which employers can strike an efficient balance between flexibility for employees and security of their assets.