Global drive towards mobile employees

Around the world more and more employees are working from home, according to a survey released by Network security and productivity solutions provider SonicWall.

The survey -- conducted by online marketing research services Insight Express and SonicWALL at the end of 2005--was made up of 941 remote and mobile workers worldwide. 650 responses to the survey came from the United States, with the remainder from Australia, Canada, Asia Pacific, Japan and Europe. The majority of respondents were in the 25 to 45 age range.

More than half of the survey's respondents accessed the corporate network from home on a daily basis, with 86 percent logging in remotely several times a week.

Respondents said that the chief attraction of working remotely was the ability to maintain a flexible schedule.

However only 22 percent of workers used mobile phones or PDAs to work from home, but respondents said they expected this type of usage to grow in the coming year. Seventy Six percent of employees surveyed believe that working remotely is an aid to productivity and 61 percent are also convinced that their managers agree with them.

Security came low on the list of priorities, however, with 88 percent of the individuals surveyed admitting to storing passwords in easily-discovered locations, and only 12 percent employing encrypted files to store and manage their login data.

Fifty six percent said they rely on their memories to keep track of their network passwords, while others used the same passwords for all devices and stored the information on mobile phones, or stuck notes with login information on their computers.

According to Steve Franzese, vice president of marketing at SonicWALL organsiations were experiencing a sharp rise in the demand for simple, secure remote access to networks of all sizes.

"The growing popularity of remote and mobile working means that the perimeter of the network has become indistinct, and is therefore more difficult to protect," he said in a statement.

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