An Investigation of Cybersecurity Issues of Remote Work during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia

COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the public life style as well as the daily work activities across the world. This indeed has led both public and private sectors to attempt to adapt thereby shifting to remote work and adopting and enabling new technologies and online services in order to sustain their businesses while saving people lives. Unfortunately, a decent number of those endeavors have been undertaken unwarily in a hurry without taking the due diligence of all relevant aspects including cybersecurity and privacy. This survey aims at exploring the current state of the practice during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown and the revolving challenges of using and publishing online services in Saudi Arabia. It also investigates the needs for investment in the cybersecurity field which would increase the trust on and reliability of them; and thus encouraging organizations to move confidently towards the real digital transformation.