Rising Cybersecurity Concerns in a Remote Workplace During Coronavirus Pandemic
Published on : Wednesday 15-04-2020
To respond to Covid-19 pandemic, companies around the world are allowing work from home or remote working for their employees. This has led the reliance on digital infrastructure owing to increased shift on remote working. In such a scenario, the cybersecurity risk is also increasing and this is mainly due to a lack of authentication and authorization.
Since more employees now are working from home, business networks have been opened to innumerable untrusted networks and, potentially, some unauthorized devices. The increasing remote workplace paves chances for hackers to breach or insert malware into individuals’ routers.
The United States Secret Service, Homeland Security and the World Health Organizations have already warned of coronavirus-related phishing scams. In the time of crisis, cybercriminals always in look for a breach and in the current pandemic they can take advantages of coronavirus through sending mass emails related to health information. In this case, it is essential to do not rely on that information and do not share any personal information.
IT departments are particularly on target of hackers because they always change the routine and open internal systems to perform external work. In the case of remote working, IT teams may have to carry out network and VPN configurations, new devices, ports and IT addresses. As a result, a larger attack surface has been created and makes it possible to set up incorrectly when applying these changes.
Ensuring Cybersecurity During Remote Working
While implementing heightened security, businesses must consider enhanced security protocols and undertaking to safeguard office devices. They need to prioritize the security of their data and its usage because in most case the leakage of data being done by internal persons. In this case, setting passwords are not enough. Organizations and even individuals who work with their personal wifi networks in remote working must constantly monitor the device, the network, the application and the data.
Reminding employees on a regular basis of their own internal processes and sketching the policies and procedures businesses have in place can help prevent any data breaches. It is the companies’ responsibility to let aware of their workers regarding cyber breaches. Employers must provide their employees with up-to-date anti-virus software for their personal devices. They can also need to ensure the security of the personal Wi-Fi wireless networks.
There are also some certain software that allows companies to remotely access personal devices to make updates or patches to envelope potential vulnerabilities or to rub out information should that device be lost or stolen.
So, in a remote working environment that is currently in trend across the world due to Covid-19, maintaining and ensuring security risks is vital. We believe the regular update and then monitoring of devices, doesn’t matter is it a smartphone, tablet or PCs, must be involved in everyday life routine.