Cybersecurity Concerns Increases In This Pandemic

Surely, 2020 is the year which we can label as the most disruptive year in the history of the world. This year had a whole lot of sinister events for many countries. However, among all other disasters, one of the biggest disruptions that pushed all of us on the same page was none other than the novel COVID-19 commonly known as the CoronaVirus. 

The COVID-19 just completely turned the way of everything we do.  Initially, thousands of people lost their lives amidst the COVID-19 outbreak. 

One of the most intimidating facts about this novel virus was that it rapidly spread when an infected person talks, sneaks or even touches. 

Its speedy spread made companies shift work to remote and soon the remote work started to pan out worldwide. It was certainly an unprecedented step since no remote work was ever encouraged to any country like this. 

Almost every country of the world started to resume work from home to avoid contact between the individuals and to prevent further spread of the novel virus. 

Unfortunately, the new working trend doesn’t come alone. It brought a bundle of security threats with it. 

In this blog, I will show you all the cybersecurity concerns that head up amidst COVID-19. I’ll also discuss the potential solution to combat the cybersecurity crisis. 

First, let’s take some insight into how COVID-19 increases the cybersecurity concerns. 

How COVID-19 Raised Cybersecurity Threats 

As soon as the remote work started to eventuate, hackers and cyber criminals from around the world got activated.  

These hackers constantly tried to exploit home networks because they already knew that home networks are vulnerable. Moreover, home networks were extremely easy to be targeted since there were no professional tools for cyber defense. 

Organizations have a whole defense aligned with their system to combat cyber-attacks whereas home networks are prone to hacking. 

Many hackers saw home networks as the opportunity to steal sensitive business information. Hence, various attempts have been made to capture confidential business data from the network. 

How Hackers Attempted to Steal Information? 

Cyber security risks increased when hackers started using various approaches to steal sensitive user data. The data was not limited to business data, hackers possibly tried to access whatever they could have. The novel virus already created a perplexed environment, and a lot of cyber goons created fake websites  These websites supposedly aimed to provide information related to the virus and precaution. In return, these sites ask for sensitive user information including name, age, sex, email ID and etc. 

Other approaches also used by the hackers to get information. Below I am outlining a few of the most common tricks: 

• Social Engineering Techniques

Social engineering is a trick that involves human interaction to trick users to a point where they are happily convinced to share their personal information. These hackers used social engineering techniques and pretended to be an authentic source of information due to which users handed over personal data. 

• Malware Spread 

Many hackers used COVID-19 as a source to spread malware. These hackers throw malicious links as if these links are something useful containing important information about the disease. However, in reality these links were just a trap to get unauthorized access to users’ sensitive data. Sometimes the malware also damages users’ devices for a ransom and a lot of ransomware cases have also been reported during the COVID-19 phase. 

• Phishing 

Phishing attacks are already quite prototypical when it comes to the cybersecurity breach. Since it’s quite a hands on approach therefore, hackers also attempted unlimited phishing attacks to trick users for accessing confidential business and user data. 

How Businesses Stopped Hackers from Infiltrating into Corporate Networks 

With the increasing cybersecurity threats, companies all over the globe had to find a way to fight back against the scams. Therefore, several new policies had been implemented by businesses while resuming work from home. These policies have proved to be somehow successful to stop data from leaking, stealing and hacking.  Keep reading to find the ways how organizations have stopped disruption to infiltrate business networks: 

• Employee training 

Companies which started to operate remotely decided to train their employees regarding which links and emails their employees were supposed to click and or open. In this way, their workers got prudent enough to ignore scams or malicious sources that may harm the network and devices.  

• Access control 

Another major step that various enterprises took was restricting their network access. The network was only accessible for the concerned authorities, no other employee could attempt accessing the network. Restricting employee domains was one of the best ways to protect the network against viruses, malware and unnecessary data breaches. 

• Virtual Private Network 

We have witnessed an unbelievable upsurge in VPN usage during COVID-19 outbreak. It is because many companies have restricted their workers to continue working from home with a VPN. Using a VPN encrypts your traffic therefore, no hackers or intruders can read or access the network. In this way, your network stays secure from hacking attempts. Encryption is a technique that encodes your data and even if it is intercepted, still no one can read or understand. Therefore, it has been considered as the most pragmatic decision to buy a VPN for securing data online. 

Antivirus Software 

Soon, when people come to know that hacking attempts have been increasing during the critical phase of COVID-19, they started taking care of their cybersecurity. Many remote workers started using updated antivirus software. The anti-virus software helped users to get informed by malware and other malicious sources. Anti-virus software is a great security tool that keeps your system protected from incoming threats and viruses. 

Conclusion 

The COVID-19 crisis got the world into a difficult situation. Everything was unprecedented even for the authorities and governments. The shift from physical to remote work was quite a big move that left so many holes for the disruption. Hackers possibly tried all the ways to mess up those security lopes. However, the right strategies at the right time saved businesses from severe data breaches and other cyber threats. It seems that the constant deployment of such tools and techniques could possibly control cybersecurity breaches in the future.