90 per cent of employees put their business at risk when working remotely

30 per cent of employees have never had any cyber security training, and many follow unsafe practices

The majority of employees follow poor cyber-security practices when working remotely, with many sharing passwords and connecting to public WiFi. Nearly a third of UK households with a computer have been the victim of malware or had passwords stolen in the last months.

Almost 30 per cent of employees have never had any cyber-security training. T-Systems, the corporate IT arm of Deutsche Telekom, hopes that its new research will encourage businesses to make such training mandatory. These employees, it says, represent 'a huge and vulnerable back door for viruses and cyber criminals into businesses' IT networks.'

The likelihood of viruses spreading from personal devices and into work files is rising, as the number of connected devices in UK households grows. The average household now has seven smartphones, PCs, tablets, laptops, smart TVs or game consoles - and that is not even touching on the IoT.

Around 30 per cent of households now own at least one connected IoT device. Most commonly (12.7 per cent) these are voice-controlled products like Amazon Echo or a Samsung Smart Hub, but appliances (8.9 per cent), security products like cameras (7.5 per cent) and thermostats, light bulbs or similar (7.5 per cent) are becoming more popular. IoT devices often lack basic security and use the default passwords.

T-Systems expects the number of households with IoT devices to rise 'dramatically' over the next year, increasing their vulnerability to hackers.

88 per cent of people undertake at least one 'risky' activity when working remotely, whether that is having no anti-virus protection (17 per cent), sending work documents to personal email accounts (28 per cent) or sharing passwords between work and personal devices (12 per cent).

Scott Cairns, head of cyber security in the UK for T-Systems, said:

"Once one device at home picks up malware, it can easily spread to others on the network. Employees emailing work documents to and from home devices opens the door for malware to be spread throughout the organisation.

"It is easy to blame employees for this practice, but many do not receive adequate training from their employer, and many get none at all."