The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the thought leaders as individuals, and are not attributed to CeFPro or any particular organization.
By Victor Lessoff, Managing Director, Head of Internal Investigations, TIAA
What risks are involved with returning to the office versus risks with home working?
This is actually a very interesting question as one might think that a return to the office would reduce the opportunity and ability for an inside actor to perpetrate corporate fraud. Such a premise would be based upon organizations ability to re-implement certain “on location” controls that were compromised when alternate workplace (work at home) protocols were enacted. The first fallacy of such a premise is that many of our organizations are not bringing employees back to the office in the same manner as the pre-COVID world. Some employees are likely to continue to work from home while returning to the office for others will be a hybrid system with the ability and approval to log in from off-site for part of the work week. Accordingly, many of the same weaknesses in a full time work from home may still exist in a part time work from home scenario. For example, a customer service representative who wants to take pictures of sensitive client data off of their monitor would likely do so on the days that they are working offsite, but not necessarily on the days they are on-site when they would have a higher chance of getting caught by traditional physical surveillance controls.
