With more people working from home due to the pandemic, enterprises across the globe are more vulnerable than ever to cyber attacks.
Businesses have been faced with the challenge of adapting to a new “business as usual” model to minimize the health risks associated with employees and customers being in close physical contact. Millions of workers have seen their routines changed and have now become full-time remote workers. This change has brought on additional information security risks to companies. These risks include data breaches, access to proprietary software and tools, system integrity, and availability of key information systems.
Mitigation Best Practices That Can Help Your Company To Be Cyber Resilient.
Increased risks Due To Increased Usage
Information Technology (IT) teams had to scramble to accommodate a massive increase in the infrastructural needs brought on by remote working employees. This increase has caused many IT teams to bypass certain security best practices in favor of a speedy transition process. Other challenges IT teams face are from staff members who either willfully or unintentionally set up Shadow IT services – installed their own workaround – which oftentimes is not secure and can pose substantial security risks
Additionally IT teams may have put off making critical network patches in favor of sustaining the work from home process. Reasons such as increased load on telework-enabling resources have severely cut into the time available for performing valuable network patch maintenance tasks. Having previously in-person activities now being done remotely is an enterprise challenge that requires adaptation of business processes and flexibility to keep business as usual activities operating.
There has also been the inevitable increase in the number of HelpDesk requests which has increased the workload of IT Support teams, with teleworking users repeatedly contacting the Help Desk, creating pressure to skip authentication or authorization steps in order to deal with the increase in call volumes.
Nefarious actors of all types exploiting public uncertainty of the pandemic
Cyber threat actors across the globe have been using the public’s fear, uncertainty, and curiosity about the pandemic to adapt their tactics, and targeting strategies. There has been an increase in the number of phishing, malicious sites, and business email compromise attempts linked to the pandemic, according to multiple sources. These can appear in the form of official company documents including emails, memos, and policy documents that are unsuspectedly opened by members of staff. Ransomeware attacks are increasingly on the rise. Threat actors have been conducting data theft and holding it hostage for the purpose of collecting ransom. In a recent case, the entire eastern seaboard was affected by a gas shortage due to the colonial pipeline falling victim to a ransomware attack.
How Can IT Teams and Companies Guard Against Cyberattacks?
The landscape of cyber attacks is an ever-changing and ever-evolving one. Given the dynamic nature of threats, one may saw it is hard if not impossible to stop them. There are however some crucial steps IT teams and companies can implement to mitigate the veracity of these attacks:
- Encrypt and backup data.
- Educate staff on cybersecurity
- Create a security-focused workplace culture
- Conduct regular audits
- Secure sensitive data first.
- Fight technology with technology
Companies Should Adopt a Policy of Multi-faceted Risk Mitigations Including:
- Centrally manage and promulgate robust teleworking solutions to empower and enable employees, customers, and third parties.
- Leverage role-based rather than location-based identity and access management solutions, analytics, and controls.
- Establish second-factor authentication for formerly in-person processes, such as manual phone calls, a system of shared secrets, or other authentication controls relevant to the formerly in-person process.
- Provide links to official resources for pandemic-related information to avoid the spread of disinformation within your organization.
- Establish formal and transparent channels for corporate messaging to highlight what the enterprise is doing to address this pandemic.
Get The Best Cybersecurity Services in South Florida?
While you may never be able to stop attempted attacks on your company’s network, there are things you can do to prevent those attacks from succeeding. It is crucial to address the vulnerabilities in your company’s cybersecurity infrastructure to mitigate network breaches. Don’t hesitate to reach out to South Florida’s leading cybersecurity provider – CPT of Florida – with any questions about comprehensive solutions that meet your company’s specific cybersecurity needs. Visit our contact us page or call us at 9549632775 to speak to a Florida Data Cybersecurity Specialist today!