The outbreak of the coronavirus pushed almost every business to operate remotely. However, even with remote working becoming the new norm, it could not manage to counter the pathways for cyber attacks. Instead, because of growing remote work, the cybercriminals have become more vigilant and successful in their malicious intentions.
Just a few weeks back, before the end of 2020, the software provider SolarWinds was breached by hackers. The attack managed to directly infect the company’s Orion software, state agencies, federal agencies, and several local agencies in the United States.
A report by SolarWinds showed that 18,000 of the company’s customers inadvertently installed trojanized updates from the software. Hackers had placed this malicious code into the updates. All of this led to a huge surge on the company’s networks and enabled continuous checks to make sure that second-stage malware is prevented from happening.
While all this happened in the last days of 2020, a lot more is expected from 2021. As per the report published by the Sijoitusrahastot, research and data analyzed show that a lot more companies will increase the spending on cybersecurity in 2021.
The reports also added that companies’ spending on cybersecurity will increase to $51.7 billion in the current year, from $40.8 billion in 2019 and $43.1 billion in 2020.
Adding to this, a Garneter report claims that information security spending has reached $128.8 billion in 2020.
The Risk of Using Bad Internet
Increased cyber attacks are not only because hackers have become smarter, but increased negligence and lack of care by remote workers during work from home is also a big reason for this. As per the report of OpenVPN, 54% of IT professionals think that remote workers pose a great threat to company cybersecurity than on-site employees.
This is because remote workers, usually geographically distributed teams, rely on their Wi-Fi, unprotected OS, and use their own devices to perform their corporate tasks. While most of us use our own internet connections, using insecure internet connections causes risk to your company’s security.
Weak and cheap internet connections provide easy pathways to malicious hackers that are always on the lookout for when your device becomes vulnerable. Plus, a weak internet connection keeps the internet-connected device always vulnerable. Therefore, the foremost strategy that every company should apply to its remote working staff is to oblige them to use a reliable internet connection from reliable service providers.
For instance, if your employees are using the internet connection from Cox internet then they are still on the safer side. This is because Cox provides a reliable and high-speed internet connection. This not only makes remote working efficient but also protects the device from threats and becoming vulnerable to hackers.
Use Business VPN
A Virtual Private Network is one of the most essential safeguards for companies working during the coronavirus outbreak. VPN provides end-to-end encryption for the devices connected to the internet.
As per VPN Mentor, one of the most major threats concerning cybersecurity is identity theft. 63% of companies are concerned regarding identity theft while 45% are worried about banking and credit card fraud.
Therefore, going a step ahead by making sure each of your employees working from home has enabled VPN in their wok devices can help you stay a little less concerned about identity theft, frauds, and more. Business VPNs also offer a variety of features such as network segmentation, on-premises security of network data. In comparison to normal VPNs, business VPN’s are flexible and provide increased privacy, security, and user-co troll analytics.
Continuous Upgrades
Last but not least, companies working in 2021 should make sure they make their employees habitual of keeping their devices updated with patches of the latest security compliances.
Employees that show negligence toward installing and upgrading security patches can be a big threat to the company’s security. Therefore, companies need to keep the employees trained and informed in this regard.
Upgrade the Security
A lot has changed due to the coronavirus outbreak, it is time to change or maybe upgrade the security system for the company.
We have helped you with making your 2021 secure.