The story of the year: remote work

[harlan4096]

Contents

• What changed: guilty pleasures and life-work disbalance
  
• Security issues: old, new and refreshed
  
• Shadow IT
  
• RDP attacks
  
• Bring Your Own Device
  
• Scam and phishing
  
• APT groups
  
• IronHusky / ViciousPanda
  
• TransparentTribe / MythicLeopard / APT36
  
• Ginp and tracking applications
  
• Home entertainment
  
• Gaming threats
  
• Online cinemas
  
• Phishing in delivery
  
• Conclusion and recommendations
  

The coronavirus pandemic has caused sudden, sweeping change around the world. The necessary social distancing measures are having an impact on all of us.

One large part of society that has been affected by these measures more than others is the employed. While direct customer facing businesses like restaurants and retailers have had to change their opening hours, adapt their business models or close their doors entirely, there are still millions of jobs that can be done at home, outside of the usual office working environment.

Organizations need to adapt to meet employee needs and ensure they stay productive, motivated and secure. With so many of us being asked to work in new ways in order to stay connected to our colleagues and customers, it is important to remember both the professional and personal challenges working from home on a permanent basis can bring. Quite obviously, this situation has brought a lot of issues into our lives. A survey conducted in April 2020, as things were changing rapidly, revealed that around half (46%) of respondents had never worked from home before and therefore, were not entirely ready for such changes.

There is a lot to be said about social and productivity issues caused by the new rhythm of work, but in fact, things were not that bad, because remote work in some cases helped people to have a better work-life balance and even be more productive.

What changed: guilty pleasures and life-work disbalance

Remote work is not an entirely new phenomenon; its benefits have been discussed for years now. In some industries, like IT, remote work has already been quite widespread. Last year, Kaspersky analyzed some of the positives of remote work. This research highlighted some of the most significant benefits of remote work, including increased employees’ productivity, improved work-life balance and reduced absenteeism. Situation in the world this year made it possible to verify such assumptions.

At the same time, the massive move towards remote work was not particularly voluntary – employees who were forced to work from home did not always welcome this opportunity as they had to contend with new challenges. However, they have also uncovered some substantial benefits:

• Comfort level: Employees became both more comfortable and uncomfortable. A study by Kaspersky in April found that nearly a third of employees (32%) working from home were struggling with back pain after being forced to use kitchen stools or a sofa to work. However, by November, employees had begun to compensate for this discomfort with certain “guilty pleasures”, such as “working in comfy clothes all day” (with 48% wanting to have this option in the future) and even “working without clothes”.
  
• Family issues: Being at home all day has, not surprisingly, had an effect on people’s relationships with their loved ones, with 21% of respondents from the same study in April admitting to experiencing family issues due to remote work. Two drivers of this conflict are not having a separate room for every family member who needs to work from home (26%) and arguments about how much children should use the Internet (33%). But remote work is not all bad for families, as recent study found that 47% were now able to spend more time with their families, highlighting it as the key benefit of the whole work-from-home situation.
  
• Work-life balance: Staying at home has led to difficulties maintaining an appropriate work-life balance, with nearly a third of respondents (31%) from the same survey in April admitting that they were now working more, although 46% admitted they were now spending more time pursuing personal activities. However, by November, employee attitudes appear to have shifted in favor of remote work, with nearly three-quarters (74%) saying they were happy to never return to at least some of the traditional workplace dynamics.
  
• Productivity levels: As previously mentioned, studies have indicated that working remotely can actually lead to an increase in productivity. Kaspersky found that a full 40% of employees noticed no change in their productivity levels, with 29% admitting to being more productive. However, it is also important to note employees are still missing some aspects of the traditional workplace environment, chiefly seeing their colleagues face-to-face (34%).
  

Security issues: old, new and refreshed

As shown above, questions regarding remote work – good or bad, better or worse for employees, helpful or not for businesses – are not as obvious as they might seem at first glance. However, in this report, we will focus mainly on what remote work means for businesses and employees from a security perspective.

One of the most critical questions of work-from-home security is related to employees’ awareness of the main concepts of cybersecurity. As shown by the survey, by April, 73% of workers had not received any IT security awareness training from their employer since they transitioned to working from home, leading employees to feel unprepared for facing cybersecurity issues that may arise when working remotely.

Moreover, our research showed that remote staff tended to overestimate the level of their knowledge of cybersecurity basics. In the early April of 2020, Kaspersky and Area9 Lyceum released an adaptive learning course for those transitioning to at-home working, covering the basics of secure remote operations.

Analysis of anonymized learning results revealed that in 90% of the cases where learners selected an incorrect answer, they evaluated their feelings about the given response as “I know this” or “I think I know this”.

The most dangerous outcome of such a situation is “unconscious incompetence”, when a user is not even thinking about potential risks of some action, because it is habitual and seems to be appropriate.
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