During this crisis, there has been a significant increase in Cyber-attacks due to the fact that many organizations have moved to a very rapid “work from home” model.
Threat actors are capitalizing on this unprecedented event by increasing attacks on vulnerable organizations. In some cases, they are playing on victim fears by tailoring attacks in the guise of providing information around COVID-19.
What can you do to be Cyber Secure?
Threat actors seek to exploit anxiety in this pandemic. They want to prompt us to take actions like clicking on links.
If you get an email, or other kind of message, with a sense of urgency, pause and ask yourself: Do I know this person? Is this a message I was expecting?
If you are using popular video conferencing platforms like Zoom, you need to turn on its security features, use passwords and avoid making the meeting invitation public.
What is the risk when we stop working remotely?
Responding to Cyber-attacks during this time presents a number of challenges. The organization supporting victims should be available in the locality of the victim (as travel is restricted) or be able to provide this much-needed support remotely.
If we are compromised when working from home, we could bring that compromised system into the organization when we return to work.
It is imperative that we be careful to protect ourselves physically and online during COVID-19.
Ed Dubrovsky, MBA, MSC, CISSP, PMP
Ed Dubrovsky is an Advisory Council Member and instructor in York University’s award-winning Cyber Security Programs which draw students from across North America. An information security executive and practitioner with extensive experience in technology leadership, information security architecture, implementation and management, Ed has written numerous thought leadership articles and spoken at many professional events about risk management and information security topics.
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