“Gert personal use off business computers period,” Johnston, EVP of K2 Enterprises said during his Tech Update session at the conference. 

Johnston explained that 95 percent of attacks on computers during the Covid pandemic were on personal computers deployed at home and that overall, the rate of incidents involving “fraud and bad actors” attacking through computers that have some personal use is very high. 

“Almost everyone has a smartphone oe home computer for personal use,” Johnston said. He also recommended firms provide computers dedicated for business use for those employees working at home.

Johnston warned that computer security threats are expected to rise over the next few years. One threat will come with the growth of quantum computing, which will mean criminals will have the ability to break most current encryptions.

“Everything we catalog for security will be broken,” he said. While some predictions are that these threats won’t materialize seriously until 2029, Johnston expects quantum computing may advance much more quickly with current encryption tools becoming obsolete.

He also expects the rapid spread of generative AI, especially systems utilizing ChatGPT will accelerate attacks. There will be threats from increasingly sophisticated phishing, social engineering and malware utilizing ChatGPT.