Shared tools: parents underestimate safety risks

In fact, 87% of employees in Switzerland who use their own devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops for work do so. This is shown by a new Cisco study. According to the study, over half of these children even have full access to their parents' work devices. They know the passwords and are allowed to use the device unsupervised.

87 % of Swiss parents who use their own devices for work also allow their children to use them. 63 % of these children even know the passwords and have unsupervised access. This poses a clear security risk, especially in times when hybrid working models and working from home are widespread. Despite this, few parents use proven security measures such as multi-factor authentication (33 %) or VPNs (25 %). This is shown by a Cisco study, for which around 500 working parents in Switzerland were surveyed.

According to the survey, work devices are used to give children access to the internet or digital learning content, particularly during school vacations (27 %), for schoolwork (25 %) or when children are ill (24 %).

"Any access to confidential data by an unauthorized person is a potential data breach. With access by children, there is also the risk of data being unintentionally deleted or shared - for example via an open browser tab or email," says Roman Stefanov, Head of Cyber Security Sales at Cisco Switzerland. "It may come as a surprise how widespread device sharing is. But it's not going to stop. IT teams should therefore adapt their security measures to the real challenges of working parents. This includes the introduction of zero trust processes and time limits on inactive sessions."

With family members increasingly sharing networked devices (75 % vs. 65 % two years ago), improved security practices are becoming more urgent - across activity on all devices, whether corporate-managed or not, fixed or mobile.

This enables companies to increase security:

1) Implementation of multi-factor authentication (MFA). Only 33 percent of BYOD parents use MFA when working remotely. Companies should therefore verify every access to a new application or system using MFA or biometric recognition.

2) Protection of sensitive data by VPN. Of the parents in Switzerland who need their own devices for work, only 26% use VPN when working outside the company. Access to sensitive data should therefore only be possible via a VPN, where a separate user name and password must be entered and verification via MFA is mandatory.

3) Regulate the handling of passwords. 36% use strong passwords for BYOD and over 26% change their passwords regularly. Companies should require strong passwords and change them regularly when accessing their systems or use passwordless authentication.

4) Allow guest accounts. Employees should be able to set up guest accounts on their company devices to allow family members limited secure use without access to business systems.

5) Carry out regular backups. Spilled lemonade or paint on the keyboard, the device falls onto the tiled floor: Even if there are children in the household, important data must not be lost and replacement devices must be easy to restore using the backed-up data. This requires constant backups.

6) Cybersecurity training. Employees should be informed about the importance of cyber security, the consequences of misconduct and common threats and attacks. Simple guidelines help to understand what is acceptable and what is not.

About the study

The Cisco survey was conducted via Censuswide with 6,116 working parents aged 18 and over in Germany, Switzerland, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia between July 30, 2024 and August 8, 2024. In Switzerland, 501 people took part in the survey. Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society, which is based on the ESOMAR principles, and a member of the British Polling Council.