As organisations and individuals embrace new practices around how they operate such as remote working, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced tech companies to transition from physical to digital to everything from collaboration to cloud storage.
The disruption brought about by the pandemic has led cybercriminals around the world to capitalize on this crisis to attack its victims, businesses and end-user are being attached through phishing, malspams, ransomware and other related attacks where their victims are being tricked into downloading ransomware disguised as a legitimate application.
To fully understand the risk better, some businesses admit to not being prepared to remote working at the start of the pandemic, while others recorded success from the shift but were vulnerable to cyber attacks as employees access sensitive data from the comfort of their home, cybercriminals could gain entry into the confidential company’s systems.
What is the weakest link to Cyberattack?
Employees pose the greatest threat to Cyber-attack: More than one-third of remote workers use their devices for both work and personal use. Using these devices to access the web and business applications via their private Wi-Fi networks and accessing the corporate network from devices not managed by the company.
Cybersecurity experts also reiterated that when a company lacks adequate personnel support or external cybersecurity support systems are the weakest link to cyberattack.
How can businesses be protected from Cyberattack?
- For companies to stay ahead of cybercriminals they have to develop a unified approach that aligns its employees, processes, technology and also reinforces cybersecurity policies and best its practices.
- Invest in cybersecurity insurance
- Train and educate its team
- IT personnel to run a regular check on security posture and,
- Encrypt and back up all data in cloud storage.
With this said, organisations need to come up with a business initiative to prioritize cybersecurity, as remote working would mean data residing in multiple locations, Companies that have the right measures in place and ensure their business and employees are protected from cyberattack will reap the benefit of not being at risk from potential cyber threats.
