Nearly half of Arab online users, did not receive cybersecurity guidelines from employers

Kaspersky conducted a recent survey in collaboration with

popular Arabic technology news portal – AITnews. This

survey aims to understand employees working from home

are equipped to protect themselves from the increased

attacks on networks and mobile devices.

The survey revealed that 45% of Arab respondents from

around the world did not receive any cybersecurity

guidelines from their employer on how to work from home

safely. Most people are not prepared to protect their

devices from cyber-attacks. If a cyber-attack were to take

place, this lack of knowledge would gravely affect the

business, causing major losses to the company’s data and

intelligence. The results of the survey also point towards

another concerning finding, with 54% of the respondents

using their personal laptops to work remotely. Personal

laptops are not equipped with the same level of safety

protocols the way that corporate devices are. These

findings reveal the major security flaws exposing the

company’s data to risks.

Maher Yamout, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky

said, “We often take for granted the security systems that

we have in place at our work places but the results of this

survey shows us that it is time for us to take security into

our own hands and take the necessary precautions to stay

safe online. Cybercriminals are aware that most people are

now working from home and are waiting to intercept an

insecure connection or send malicious emails under the

guise of providing important information. We at Kaspersky

urge users to stay vigilant during these difficult times.”

47% of the respondents said that they are working more

efficiently from home while 44% said they will continue

working from home even after the quarantine has ended. .

However, 79% do not feel safe from cyber-attacks while

working from home. For that, Kaspersky advices consumers

to take the following measures: For workers and users at

home who have to work from their personal devices,

Kaspersky advises:

• Trusted sources: Download educational and
• entertaining content strictly from trusted sources
• Trusted networks: Only use trusted networks for online activities. If it’s not your network and you need to go online, use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to secure your connection.
•  Back up data: Regularly back up data onto an external hard drive that is kept offline. In case the data is lost, you avoid losing your work.

For organisations, Kaspersky recommends the following:

• Provide training: Schedule basic security awareness training for your employees. This can be done online and cover essential practices, such as account and password management, email security, endpoint security.
• Update devices: Ensure devices, software, applications and services are kept updated with the latest patches

Install proven protection software: Install security

softwares from a verified source that