With 2024 almost at an end, home workers can soon look forward to what 2025 will bring. However, while there may be some good things to look forward to, many challenges in maintaining and protecting IT systems while working remotely will remain and some may grow.

Although there is some data to show that hybrid working became more common than working exclusively in a remote setting from early 2022 as the ‘new normal’ emerged post-pandemic, there remains a clear core of home workers needing good IT support.

Although there will be some technological changes for some people to handle in 2025 – specifically the switch-off of analogue phone signals on December 31^st – the fact that most people will be fully digitised already means this is not the biggest challenge.

Instead, IT security will invariably be the main threat. The only question will be what specific perils will emerge.

Among those predicting what the New Year will bring is IT security firm Morefield. It predicted that ransomware, which has increased 81 per cent since 2023, will become worse, with crooks stealing data as well as encrypting it, meaning they issue a double ransom instead of just one.

Secondly, it predicts the ‘Internet of Things’ and ‘extended reality’ devices will expand in use, which means more devices may be targeted. But perhaps the most concerning will be that AI will empower criminals, such as using them to create nastier forms of malware.

Even the public cloud will not always be safe, with points of potential vulnerability including denial of service attacks and insider attacks.

All this goes to show that 2025 could be a testing year. But that has been true of many previous years as well, not least in 2020 when so many people were getting used to working remotely for the first time. With the right support, you can deal with whatever is coming down the line.