IT help or therapist? A new survey has found three in five IT workers have to ‘frequently provide emotional support’ to users when they encounter a cybersecurity issue.<br /><br />The poll of 2,000 US employees and IT workers revealed some of the most common accidents and mishaps employees have had with their work computers: spilling coffee or water on it (63%), spilling alcohol on it (63%), dropping it (45%) or falling for a phishing attempt (37%).<br /><br />As a result, 59% of IT workers have to either “always” or “often” calm down users so they can explain what happened.<br /><br />While cybersecurity threats are on the rise, four in five (79%) IT workers have a high level of trust that their organization’s users can identify and prevent cybersecurity threats themselves.<br /><br />The feeling is mutual for 81% of employees who stated their IT team was prepared to deal with cybersecurity issues whenever they come up. This is likely due in part to regular cybersecurity education — 40% of IT respondents saying they require training monthly and another 25% offering it quarterly. <br /><br />Commissioned by LogMeIn Rescue (a GoTo product) and conducted by OnePoll, research revealed despite seemingly being prepared, many still put off reaching out to IT.<br /><br />An overwhelming majority of employees (94%) admitted they delay contacting IT, stating they will first try their own basic troubleshooting (62%) or be too embarrassed to admit what happened (52%).<br /><br />Many shared the most common reasons they contact their organization’s support team: from being locked out of their email or computer (60%) to phishing attempts (48%) and internet issues (46%). <br /><br />IT respondents reported that in more than 60% of these troubleshooting situations, they often or always rely on a remote support or remote access tool to resolve the end user’s issue.<br /><br />IT workers agreed: they deal with email and computer lockouts most frequently (54%), followed by regularly dealing with forgotten passwords (41%) and complex issues with in-house software (30%). <br /><br />An alarming 48% of employees reported seeing phishing attempts and 39% said that they have had to reach out to IT for a virus or malware issue on their computer.<br /><br />The surveys, designed to ask employees and IT professionals separately how they interact with one another, found both groups largely see eye-to-eye on similar issues.<br /><br />More than four in five (84%) employees said they are aware of how their IT team is supporting their businesses on a daily basis, and 85% in the IT field say they are aware of what users do on their work devices during the workday.<br /><br />Eighty-four percent of employees find their IT department to be helpful and 76% said their IT team makes it easy to resolve tech-related issues.<br /><br />Workers also generally find their IT team fast to fix issues — 31% said they tend to respond within an hour. Twenty-three percent said it only takes a couple of minutes, while 15% said the response time is immediate.
