E-Business
New HP Cybersecurity Report Reveals 91% of IT Teams Feel Pressure to Compromise Security
HP Inc. has released its HP Wolf Security Rebellions & Rejections report, a comprehensive global study highlighting the tension between IT teams and employees working from home that security leaders must resolve in order to secure the future of work.
The findings show that IT teams have been forced into compromising security for business continuity at a time of rising threats. Making matters worse, their attempts to increase or update security measures for remote workers have often been rejected.
This is particularly true for the future workforce of 18-24-year-olds – digital natives who feel increasingly frustrated with security getting in the way of deadlines, leading many to circumvent controls.
The new HP Wolf Security report combines data from a global YouGov online survey of 8,443 office workers who shifted to WFH during the pandemic and a global survey of 1,100 IT Decision Makers, conducted by Toluna. Key findings include:
- 76% of IT teams admit security took a backseat to business continuity during the pandemic, while 91% felt pressure to compromise security for business continuity.
- Almost half (48%) of younger office workers (18-24 years old) surveyed viewed security tools as a hindrance, leading to nearly a third (31%) trying to bypass corporate security policies to get their work done.
- 48% of office workers surveyed agreed that seemingly essential security measures result in a lot of wasted time – this rises to 64% among those ages 18-24.
- Over half (54%) of 18–24-year-olds were more worried about meeting deadlines than exposing their organization to a data breach; 39% were unsure what their security policies say, or are unaware if their company even has them – suggesting a growing level of apathy among younger workers.
- As a result, 83% of IT teams believe the increase in home workers has created a “ticking time bomb” for a corporate network breach.
“The fact that workers are actively circumventing security should be a worry for any CISO – this is how breaches can be born,” comments Ian Pratt, Global Head of Security for Personal Systems, HP Inc. “If security is too cumbersome and weighs people down, then people will find a way around it.
Instead, security should fit as much as possible into existing working patterns and flows, with technology that is unobtrusive, secure-by-design and user-intuitive. Ultimately, we need to make it as easy to work securely as it is to work insecurely, and we can do this by building security into systems from the ground up.”
The report highlights that many security teams have made efforts to curb user behavior to keep data safe. 91% have updated security policies to account for the rise in working from home, while 78% have restricted access to websites and applications.
However, these controls often create friction for users, who resent the controls and push back on IT, leaving security teams feeling dejected and rejected:
- 37% of office workers surveyed said security policies and technologies are often too restrictive.
- 80% of IT teams experienced push back from users who do not like controls being put on them at home; 67% of IT teams said they experience complaints about this weekly1.
- 83% of IT teams said trying to set and enforce corporate policies around cybersecurity is impossible now the lines between personal and professional lives are so blurred1.
- 80% of IT teams said IT security was becoming a “thankless task” because nobody listens to them1.
- 69% of IT teams said they are made to feel like the “bad guys” for imposing restrictions1.
“CISOs are dealing with increasing volume, velocity and severity of attacks,” comments Joanna Burkey, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), HP Inc. “Their teams are having to work around the clock to keep the business safe, while facilitating mass digital transformation with reduced visibility.
“Cybersecurity teams should no longer be burdened with the weight of securing the business solely on their shoulders, cybersecurity is an end-to-end discipline in which everyone needs to engage.”
Burkey continues: “To create a more collaborative security culture, we must engage and educate employees on the growing cybersecurity risks, while IT teams need to better understand how security impacts workflows and productivity. From here, security needs to be re-evaluated based on the needs of both the business and the hybrid worker.”
HP is helping organizations to secure the hybrid workplace by delivering transparent and unobtrusive endpoint security. With HP Wolf Security organizations benefit from robust, built-in protection from the silicon to the cloud, and BIOS to browser.
It enables Cybersecurity teams to deliver user-friendly tools and help to ease restrictions, while also providing defense-in-depth and enhanced protection, privacy, and threat intelligence, gathering data at the endpoint to help protect the business at large.
Kaspersky has identified an advanced phishing campaign targeting employees with personalised emails and attached documents disguised as HR policy updates.
This campaign marks a significant escalation in phishing tactics, with attackers tailoring not only the email body, but also the attachments by addressing individual recipients, showcasing an unprecedented level of customisation. The goal was to lure the victim into entering their corporate email credentials.
The attackers likely prepared by parsing employee names to make the campaign targeted and more convincing.
The emails feature a deceptive body: a fraudulent “verified sender” badge to build trust, the recipient’s name, and an invitation to open the attached file to review remote work protocols, benefits administration and security standards. However, the whole email body is in reality just an image with no real text in it; this is done to bypass email filters.
The attached document, posing as an updated “Employee Handbook,” does not contain any actual guidelines – only a title page, a table of contents with the items that have supposedly been changed highlighted in red, a page with a QR code, supposedly for going to the full document and common instructions on how to read QR codes using a phone. The document features the victim’s name multiple times to convince that this document was created specifically for them.
If the victim scans the QR code and follows the link, they land on a fraudulent page where they are asked to enter their corporate credentials, which is what the attackers are hunting for.
“This campaign demonstrates a new level of sophistication in phishing attacks, and we may be seeing a new mailing automation mechanism that generates a separate attached document and a separate image for the email body for each recipient.
“This tactic allows to scale the attack and at the same time possibly evade traditional defenses. Organisations must prioritise advanced security measures and employee education to stay ahead of these threats,” comments Roman Dedenok, Anti-Spam Expert at Kaspersky.
Temu, the global online marketplace, has joined the International Trademark Association (INTA) as a corporate member and serves on its Anti-Counterfeiting Committee.
INTA is a global association that brings together more than 6,700 organizations, representing over 37,000 trademark professionals and brand owners across 181 countries. By joining INTA, Temu deepens its commitment to building a trusted online marketplace and advancing global IP protection through broader, cross-industry collaboration.
“INTA welcomes TEMU’s willingness to engage in anticounterfeiting initiatives, including in the Association’s annual Anticounterfeiting Workshop and Online Takedown Certificate Program which serve to share best practices and connect stakeholders,” said Alastair Gray, Director of Anti-Counterfeiting, INTA. “Constructive collaboration with these efforts can contribute to the protection of intellectual property rights for INTA members and support the removal of counterfeit products from the platform which ultimately protects consumers.”
At the 2025 INTA Annual Meeting held in San Diego in May, Temu participated in the Anti-Counterfeiting Committee Roundtable, serving as a moderator to facilitate discussions among brand owners, online platforms, and government officials on emerging technologies, best practices for collaboration, and strategies to strengthen global anti-counterfeiting efforts.
“Joining INTA and serving on its Anti-Counterfeiting Committee reflects Temu’s ongoing commitment to ensuring a trustworthy online shopping experience,” said a Temu spokesperson. “We value collaboration with industry peers and stakeholders and are dedicated to advancing collective efforts in intellectual property protection.”
Temu also participates in INTA-led online workshops, including the Online Platform Notice and Takedown Certification Program, which outlines the latest procedures and best practices used by e-commerce platforms and social media companies. These workshops aim to enhance the quality and accuracy of rights-holder notices, promoting more effective takedown processes and content moderation.
Since launching in 2022, Temu has made significant investments in IP enforcement. Its measures include comprehensive seller vetting and compliance training, 24/7 algorithmic monitoring with manual review, a dedicated IP protection portal and brand registry to streamline takedown submissions, and an internal enforcement team that handles claims with speed and accuracy.
China’s Huawei Technologies unveiled an AI computing system on Saturday that an industry expert said rivals Nvidia’s most advanced product, as the company aims to expand its footprint in the country’s booming AI sector.
The CloudMatrix 384 system made its public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai, attracting a large crowd to Huawei’s booth with its showcase of cutting-edge AI innovations.
The system has attracted significant interest from the global AI community since Huawei (HWT.UL) first introduced it in April. Industry analysts see it as a direct challenger to Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72, the most advanced system-level offering currently available from the U.S. chipmaker.
In an April article, Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis, stated that Huawei now possesses AI system capabilities that could surpass those of Nvidia.
Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system.
A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions.
Huawei has become widely regarded as China’s most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces U.S. export restrictions.
Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been “moving quite fast” and named the CloudMatrix as an example.
The CloudMatrix 384 system features 384 of Huawei’s latest 910C chips and, according to SemiAnalysis, surpasses Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72 in certain performance metrics, despite the latter using 72 B200 chips.
SemiAnalysis attributes this performance advantage to Huawei’s strong system design, which offsets the lower power of individual chips by leveraging a greater number of them and incorporating system-level innovations.
Huawei describes the system as utilizing a “supernode” architecture that enables ultra-high-speed interconnectivity between chips.
In June, Zhang Pingan, CEO, Huawei Cloud confirmed that the CloudMatrix 384 was already operational on Huawei’s cloud platform.
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