Many of us don’t like to think about what was happening in our businesses one year ago. Companies were cutting services, sending people home, and even shutting down entirely to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Sadly, some didn’t make it through the pandemic, and others faced difficult times. But there is good news: many companies did make it and some even thrived. The hard times led to innovative approaches to work, productivity, and communication.
Throughout the confusion, organizations forced to focus on the logistics of having employees work remotely might have overlooked important cybersecurity considerations. And, if some of those same employees start coming back to the office post-pandemic, they might find a different cybersecurity landscape from the one they remember.
What to Expect
They’re very aware of what’s going on in country wise email marketing list the world at any given moment and are ready to exploit the weaknesses they observe. As more employees started working remotely when the pandemic began, they ramped up their efforts to fool workers into divulging credentials that could enable them to get access to sensitive information such as customer credit card numbers.
Since then, as arrangements have changed, perhaps multiple times, cyberthieves have continued to take advantage of the chaos. Their tricks include sending an email message to a worker that looks like it’s from their boss, asking for their home router password, or the credentials to log onto a system that contains private customer information. This type of incident (known as phishing) and many others are likely to continue.
Old Threats Are Still a Problem
Pre-pandemic attack approaches are still a threat, and some even more so than a year ago. Let’s take a look at several popular types of attacks and what has changed in recent months.
- Phishing. First, a bit more about diverse cultural backgrounds bring creativity and innovation phishing. In addition to the scenario mentioned above, in which an employee receives an email ostensibly from a boss asking for login credentials, this trick can take other forms. A worker may receive an email containing a link that goes to a fake website asking for such information. In all cases, the victim is asked to provide information that enables hackers to access company systems.Employees returning to the office may be distracted by the transition and less diligent about avoiding these types of attacks.
- Ransomware. A ransomware attack involves cyber criminals gaining access to data and holding it until the victim pays a “ransom.” Having backups can help because you still have access to your data, but cybercriminals are now also threatening to release data to individuals, companies, or the public.
Remote Work Attracts Hacks
Some of the threats listed in the previous section can be a problem for employees whether they’re coming back to the office or remaining at home. Other challenges are specific to WFH arrangements:
- Cloud attacks. The pandemic calling list created the need for more employees to work remotely, which meant the implementation of more cloud services for greater access. This approach increases convenience and productivity but can also serve as an entry point for attacks. Cloud malware attacks include hypervisor denial of service (DoS), distributed denial of service (DDoS), hypercall, hyperjacking, and exploiting live migration.