Today, many employees telework (also known as “telecommuting,” “work from home,” or “work from anywhere”). Teleworking is the ability of an organization’s employees, contractors, business partners, vendors, and other users to perform work from locations other than the organization’s facilities. Telework has been on the rise for some time, but sharply increased in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. For many, telework is now the only way to get work done, and the original concept of “telework” has evolved into being able to work anytime, anywhere.

The technologies used for telework have also evolved recently. Examples of this include the ubiquity of mobile devices, the expectation to be able to access information from anywhere at any time, and the highly distributed nature of data and apps across end user devices, data centers, and clouds. Telework and zero-trust architecture may even be converging in the near future. All of these changes are affecting cybersecurity and privacy risks, and organizations need to be aware of and manage these risks. To help organizations with this, NIST offers a variety of telework cybersecurity and privacy resources, including publications, blog posts, and graphics.

NIST is building a community of interest so that interested individuals and organizations can follow the progress of NIST telework cybersecurity and privacy publications and can provide input on them. Join the community of interest by sending your request to telework@nist.gov.

Also, download our fact sheet for the Telework: Working Anytime, Anywhere project that talks about our planned updates to Special Publication 800-46, then provide us feedback! The Call for Comments has ended, but we still welcome any suggestions you have.