Remote Work is Leaving Us More Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks– Here’s Why.
Since the COVID-19 Pandemic first hit, workers were sent home by the thousands to begin the now-popular “remote work”. What started as a major inconvenience in the eyes of many Americans has since become a luxury. Working from the comfort and safety of your own home has many benefits. However, what many people aren’t aware of, is the inherent dangers. Following the popularity of remote work, there has been a significant uptick in cyber attacks, primarily aimed at the oblivious home-workers. Why?
According to an investigation conducted by UK and US-based security firm, Tessian, it was found that 56% of senior IT technicians believe their employees have picked up bad cyber-security habits while working from home. Worryingly, the survey found that many employees agreed with that assessment.
Nearly two in five (39%) admitted that their cyber-security practices at home were less thorough than those practiced in the office, with half admitting that this is a result of feeling less scrutinized by their IT departments now, than prior to COVID.
“One of the main mistakes we’ve seen is moving company data to personal e-mail accounts,” says Henry Trevelyan-Thomas, Tessian’s vice-president of Customer Success.
“When you do that, it’s likely you don’t have any sort of two-factor authentication. This then makes it easier for attackers to exploit that data. If data is leaked, attackers compromise it and it can end up in the wrong hands.”
In addition to the lack of awareness of these issues, fear tactics are now being used to reignite the ever popular phishing email. These new emails being circulating around have the common theme of COVID-19. This is not a domestic issue, as these phishing emails have been reported by various countries and businesses all over the world. During the height of the pandemic in 2020, network security firm Barracuda Networks said it had seen a 667% increase in malicious phishing emails. Google also reported, at the time, that it was blocking over 100 million phishing emails daily.
HOW SECURE HALO CAN HELP
Training and Educating
Here at Secure Halo, we offer a variety of services. One of which is Security Programs, Planning, and Remediation. Security program development and strategic planning is critical to a proactive and resilient cybersecurity posture. It requires a focus not simply on data security, but also on the people and processes of your organization. Secure Halo can assist your team in building an enterprise security program to help prevent intellectual property theft, secure sensitive or valuable data, and maintain business continuity. To learn more, click here.
