Cybercriminals love to take advantage of chaos, and the rapid transition that many companies have made to remote operations during the COVID-19 pandemic has provided them with golden opportunities to exploit.
Reuters reports that hacking incidents are on the rise worldwide, and it’s no surprise. Cyberattacks have more than doubled since the beginning of March, and ransomware attacks are up 148%. An upswing in digital breaches seems to correlate with locations where COVID-19 has had the most impact, as hackers exploit additional uncertainty in those regions.
So how can SMBs prevent themselves from becoming the next victim of opportunistic hackers? Add a few safety protocols to help increase the chance that hackers won’t land an attack.
Communicate
Hackers are having the most success in hard-hit regions because people in those areas are exceptionally anxious and staffers who are feeling isolated and nervous are more likely to fall victim to a phishing attack. Combat this by making sure that everyone in the organization is in constant open communication and share easy-to-understand security aids like infographics widely to make sure that everyone is up to speed. We’ve put together these tools to help SMBs navigate the hazards of securing a remote workforce.
Educate
Make sure that every user is up to date on the fresh phishing scams that cybercriminals are unleashing by using a state-of-the-art phishing preparedness solution like BullPhish ID. We just added several COVID-19 related tools to BullPhish ID because new threats are popping up quickly – and cybercriminals are going the extra mile to make infected attachments, false credential requests, and fake landing pages look good enough to snare unsuspecting users.
Update
Don’t rely on the same security measures that worked at the office to secure a remote workforce. Add secure identity and access management using a remote-ready solution like Passly because vulnerabilities that were previously ameliorated by in-office security can recur when workers go remote and aren’t behind the office firewall. Multifactor authentication with Passly means that even if the bad guys do gain find an opening when workers go remote, they can’t get in to steal data without an authentication code.