Working from home, on-the-hoof, or more generally working in temporary and transient locations, changes the information risks compared to working in purpose-built corporate offices.  Mostly, the risks increase in line with the complexities of remote access, portability and physical dispersion … but offsetting that, off-site working can be convenient, productive and popular, and there are business continuity advantages too, not least during a pandemic. 
 
Implementing appropriate security controls is an essential part of making it work, with security awareness being a key part of the mix.
 
‘The workplace’ is a complex and dynamic concept, more than merely a physical location where work is performed. Both ‘work’ and ‘workplace’ are evolving. Whereas most of an organisation’s information might once have been created, housed and used by workers based in conventional offices, today’s increasingly mobile workers are using portable wireless-networked IT equipment to create, use and communicate information wherever they happen to be at the time.  Hybrid working is all the rage. 
 
Although some kinds of work necessarily remain bound to particular physical locations by the production machinery and resources, the workers themselves are gradually being set free by automation.  The nature of work is changing too.  This decade has seen the rapid ascendance of tech-enabled social networking, crossing organisational boundaries and further blurring the distinction between our work and private/home lives. 
 
Learning objectives
Explain the information risk arising from working off-site e.g. at home;
Expand on the associated information security controls of all kinds – cybersecurity plus physical security, administrative controls, compliance controls and more;
Motivate workers to take care over information entrusted to them when working off-site.
 
As always, there are parallel streams of content designed to appeal to three audiences:
Workers in general (including the other two audiences) - those generating, handling and using information in the course of work;
Managers with strategic, governance, risk management, oversight and compliance responsibilties; and
Professionals specialising in IT, risk management, security management, compliance etc.