Högskolan i Skövde

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2019 surprised information security practitioners in the organizations due to the change imposed on employees’ work routines. Employees were asked to work from home, and therefore changes were necessary to reduce information security risks actively. The abrupt change of work environments brought many challenges to the practitioners, which caused them to make decisions regarding organizational information security. This article aims to uncover those challenges through an ethnography study within an organization during the fourteen months of teleworking. On an overarching level, we found four challenges to be of concern: technical security, regulations and policies, employee awareness of security issues, and, finally, preparedness for the new work environment of teleworking. We believe that the challenges brought by the analysis will inspire discussions about the future of research and practice regarding information security management in case of disasters.