Remote working: information and key risks

Remote working: information and key risks

CAUDIT, ucisa's Australian equivalent, has kindly shared a list of key risks to remote working, as articulated by their members:

Census Date — students may choose to abandon the semester, resulting in lost income from domestic students
Employment — international students are not securing their normal levels of employment; there is a risk that they will be unable to afford costs and may have to return home
Borders — students overseas are unable to enter country to study, resulting in delays and loss in income
Quarantine/Isolation — students and staff from overseas are required to isolate for 14 days
Domestic Residential Students — students from other regions in country may wish to return home due to the virus; if courses cannot be run online, this may result in withdrawal
Increased cyber attacks — DDoS, phishing, data breaches

Added 01/04/2020:

VPN tools - Advanced persistent threats have been found in VPN solutions from Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, and Pulse, among others. Ensure patching is up to date.
DDoS against VPN’s TLS server.
Remote desktop accounts - phishing or brute force attacks
Phishing - in the form of maps depicting spread of the infection in the various states

Added 02/04/2020:

Windows flaw lets Zoom leak network credentials, take care when clicking on links starting with \\

Internet load / network speed — inadequate access from home for staff and students
Third party providers - impact of vendor employee lock down or closure - domestic / international; cloud providers - confirm retention of data in agreed location i.e. Australia
International Suppliers — some evidence of international suppliers focusing on local customers (i.e. not supporting our members quickly)
Onsite Presence - requirement / availability; risk associated with physical presence onsite / working alone. Decision making/risk assessment for being ‘onsite’. Criteria for determining which activities are deemed ‘essential’? Identification of physical safety measures. Disabling of building access cards or changing locks as a control measure. Issuing of written ‘authority to be on campus’ for staff with ‘key worker status’.
Impacts on own workforce — illness, requirement to isolate; capacity to work from home; lack of ergonomic workstation e.g. monitors in addition to laptops; physical and mental health; fatigue
Maintenance of remote workforce equipment and software.
The student experience — throughout the teaching cycle, incl exams; may lead to withdrawals
‘Zoombombing’ (like photo bombing) - reports from US of Zoombombing in video lectures. Requires advice to users re Zoom settings.
Software licences - need for increased number of licences for some software e.g. conducting exams, proctoring; unlicensed use; audits