GFI SOFTWARE: CZECH COMPANIES STRENGTHEN CONNECTIVITY AND SECURITY FOR HOME OFFICE

82% of respondents to the local survey confirmed at least a partial home office.

PRAGUE, November 26, 2020 – GFI Software, a provider of enterprise network security solutions, said that nearly two-thirds of companies are now looking to strengthen their connectivity in particular, according to its local survey of Czech and Slovak IT workers. 82% of respondents said that their organisation has enabled at least partial home working as a result of the coronavirus crisis, and in 15% of cases the entire company uses a home office.

As a result of intensive remote working, security risks to corporate networks are increasing significantly. Firstly, home internet connections do not provide the same level of protection as office connections and secondly, working on unsecured home devices that may be used by multiple family members means a higher risk of introducing malware into the corporate network. In addition, weak and often unstable connections slow down business applications and reduce the quality of collaboration. Many organizations are therefore planning to strengthen and secure their connectivity.

The following findings emerged from local interrogation:

• 15% of respondents reported that the entire company works from home, 30% have more than half, 37% have less than half, and 18% have no one in the home office;
• The biggest risk of teleworking, according to 52% of respondents, is users working on private devices, 28% unprotected internet connections and 8% poorer technical support;
• 62% of companies plan to improve connectivity in the near term, 44% to strengthen VPNs and 19% to deploy firewalls;
• 44% of organisations responded to the Coronavir crisis with a decline, 19% with an increase and 37% saw no difference compared to standard economic conditions.

“The main risk of remote working is still working from home devices, where SMB companies in particular do not have the resources to provide secure corporate PCs for all their employees,” said Zdeněk Bínek, responsible for GFI Software sales in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. “In addition to that, companies are also strongly affected by poor quality connections from home networks, which do not allow them to work with the same quality as from the office. Many of our customers are therefore strengthening and optimizing their connectivity in addition to VPN connections and firewall protection.”