• silicon.com
• Technology
• Security

By Graham Hayday, 5 November 2002 14:15

NEWS Over 80 per cent of companies now have staff who work from home on a regular or occasional basis, according to the latest research, but security is still seen as a major barrier to more widespread uptake. A survey carried out by security specialist SonicWALL shows that 83 per cent of companies now allow teleworking, with 43 per cent having staff who access the company's network from home, usually via the internet. Big businesses are more likely to encourage the practice than their smaller cousins: home working is now prevalent in 98 per cent of large companies (£20m or more turnover) compared with 91 per cent of small-to-medium sized enterprises (£5-20m turnover) and 79 per cent of small businesses (£1-5m turnover). The perceived advantages of teleworking are reduced travelling time (mentioned by 61 per cent of respondents to the survey), office space savings (39 per cent), improved staff morale (37 per cent) and improved productivity (26 per cent). More than half the respondents (51 per cent) think working from home will become more common - but a similar number (52 per cent) said they were concerned about the security issues associated with allowing remote access to the corporate network. Cost (44 per cent) and security concerns (31 per cent) were seen as the major barriers to allowing home working by those companies that do not yet allow remote access. When it comes to the security measures put in place by those businesses which do allow it, almost three quarters said they review who is authorised to access the company's computers from home and just over a third (35 per cent) check who else has access to the home worker's PC. However, as many as 50 per cent never perform this check and a quarter don't even examine the home worker's equipment before granting access. When asked about security measures between the home PC and the company's computer networks, two per cent said they had no security measures at all. A significant majority said they rely on either virus checkers (85 per cent) or firewalls (71 per cent) for protection. Other security measures were used less frequently. For example, fewer than half (44 per cent) made sure the home PC employed content filtering while just one third said they used virtual private networking (VPN). Harry Gostling, UK country manager for SonicWALL, said in a statement: "These results clearly show that there is much to do in helping businesses understand the internet security risks and the range of security solutions available today. The fact that two thirds of British businesses are not encrypting their data via VPN technology should cause widespread concern." The company polled managing directors, financial directors and other senior managers of 400 UK businesses with an annual turnover of between £1m and £100m.