RAPID: Exploring the Cyber Behaviors of Temporary Work-From-Home (TWFH) Employees

针对2019年新型冠状病毒（COVID-19）的应对措施导致大量员工以临时紧急方式在家工作。本项目探讨了临时在家工作环境对组织网络安全的影响。项目团队正在评估用于帮助保护临时远程位置的组织方法，检查员工遇到的新工作场所特征，并确定这些因素是否以及如何影响敏感组织数据、信息和数字系统的安全性。项目结果将使研究团队能够为那些在重大不确定时期依赖临时、远程工作地点的员工的组织领导者制定可行的建议。该项目将有助于指导组织网络安全政策、程序的设计和实施，以及在未来重大危机时期（网络安全威胁趋于上升，员工分散在多个地点）所依赖的其他工作。研究小组正在使用混合方法评估员工对COVID-19大流行周围意外工作条件的可能反应。由于灾难之后的合作动机，这些员工可能会表现出更强的网络安全风险恢复能力。另一方面，与在家工作相关的压力源可能会导致员工不太关注网络安全需求，而是采取捷径和变通办法。因此，该项目调查了组织对COVID-19大流行和危机的应对措施在多大程度上导致个人保护其环境和组织免受网络安全威胁，或者相反，导致个人从事对敏感组织资产和实践构成威胁的行为。深入的半结构化访谈和经验抽样评估使用几个在家工作的员工样本进行。在为期两周的时间里，参与者将完成日常调查，以确定员工态度、情绪和行为的波动。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Responses to the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) have led to a substantial number of employees working from home in an ad-hoc emergency fashion. This project examines the ramifications of temporary work-from-home environments for organizational cybersecurity. The project team is assessing organizational methods used to help secure temporary remote locations, examining the new workplace characteristics that employees encounter, and determining whether and how these factors influence the security of sensitive organizational data, information, and digital systems. Project findings will allow the research team to develop actionable recommendations to organizational leaders who rely on temporary, remote work locations for their employees in times of substantial uncertainty. This project will help guide the design and implementation of organizational cybersecurity policies, procedures, and other efforts relied upon during significant future crises—times when cybersecurity threats tend to be elevated and employees dispersed throughout numerous locations.The research team is using a mixed methods approach to evaluate possible responses by employees to the unexpected work conditions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. These employees might exhibit increased resilience to cybersecurity risks due to the cooperative motivations that often follow disasters. On the other hand, stressors associated with working at home might lead employees to pay less attention to cybersecurity demands and to engage in shortcuts and workarounds. Thus, the project investigates the extent that organizational responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis lead individuals to protect their environments and their organizations from cybersecurity threats or by contrast to engage in behavior that constitutes threats to sensitive organizational assets and practices. In-depth semi-structured interviews and experience sampling assessments are performed using several samples of employees working at home. Daily surveys will be completed by a sample of participants over a two-week period to determine fluctuations in employee attitudes, emotions, and behaviors.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.