Brazilians resign to remote work monitoring

Brazilian workers have come to terms with the lack of privacy at work and are open to being monitored by their employers, but insufficient knowledge of security issues could endanger companies, a new study has found.

According to the survey carried out with 11,000 consumers across 11 countries by Unisys, 87% of the 1,000 Brazilians polled said they are comfortable with being monitored remotely by the companies they work for.

More than half of the respondents (52%) are comfortable with their employers tracking their computer access time, through login and logout events. This represents a 12 percentage points increase in relation to the global average of 40%. In addition, 65% of Brazilians say they feel responsible for the security of their data.

On the other hand, the study points to a lack of awareness about security issues, which could pose a risk to employers as organizations move towards hybrid working approaches, whereby employees can divide their time between the office and working from home.

Only a third of those polled claim to be familiar with the threat of SIM jacking, a scam in which criminals transfer the victim’s phone number to a device they control.

As for smishing, whereby scammers send SMS messages asking for personal or financial information, about six in 10 Brazilians (59%) say they are not aware of the threat. In addition, the study pointed out that 76%of those polled do not know which institutions to report scams in case they are targeted by cybercriminals.

The findings emerge in a context of a growing preoccupation among Brazilians in relation to cybersecurity. According to the Unisys report, Brazil is the third country in a ranking of nations where concerns about online security are high, after Colombia and Mexico. About 75% of those polled said they are afraid of clicking on suspicious links.

In September, the Brazilian banking sector and the Ministry of Justice started the discussions around the creation of a national strategy to tackle cybercrime. The vision outlined by the banks includes the development of public awareness campaigns on cyber risks and fraud.