Sundas Noor

Introduction In this blog, I will show you how pandemic increases cybersecurity concerns around the world. Without doubting, COVID-19 changed everything that we do, and mainly it affects online businesses around the world. Many companies shifted from on-site to remote work, which pushed hackers to target remote networks. Since work from home took place; therefore, cybercriminals started throwing the latest malware and viruses to disrupt home networks. Home networks are way less secured than office networks, and therefore, various cyber-attacks occurred during the pandemic. Organizational networks are robust because they use proper cybersecurity tools to defend the system. Whereas, home networks are an easy target for cybercriminals because they lack security; hence, cybercriminals can easily steal confidential business data from home networks. How hackers captured crucial data during work from home? As I mentioned earlier, home networks are unsecured, and therefore, hackers attempted to steal information by all means. Due to the frequent hacking approaches, the cybersecurity concerns during pandemic also increased to a new level. Since pandemic was an unprecedented situation for the entire world, governments and countries across the world had no clue how to face it, and a confused environment created naturally. Hackers make the most out of this situation and create fake, spam websites related to the COVID-19 details. Many users thought these websites are real and authentic, but in reality, these sites were malicious. Many websites asked users for details like name, number, and age. Some websites contained malware; these sites captured data and also stolen sensitive user data. Not only that, hackers around the world used spam tricks to capture data. Here I am defining those approaches used by the hackers to gather information: Phishing attacks Phishing attacks are an old but useful approach for hackers. In a phishing attack, a hacker impersonates as a legitimate authority and ask employees to share details. Employees got trapped and send out details, thinking that their official contact is asking for that. In this way, a hacker easily gets access to business and user data. Spread of Malware Besides increased phishing and malware attacks, the spread of malware was also a great concern during the pandemic. COVID-19 was the golden opportunity for hackers to spread as much malware as they want. Cybercriminals designed malicious links and presented those links as something important related to the COVID-19 stats. Users around the world clicked those links to get the updates and ended up receiving malware. Social Engineering Social engineering is one of the most common spam tricks based on human interaction. In this trick, hackers come off as an authentic source and ask users to share personal information. Users believe hackers and share intended information. How Companies Stopped Hackers from Penetrating into Sensitive Network? Pandemic has raised cyberattacks much more than ever before. Online businesses were in trouble; therefore, companies had to take IT support to combat all the scams. First, a lot of businesses started to launch new work from policies to keep things under control. Employees had to follow those policies, including not clicking unknown links. Many organizations also restricted their network access only for limited IT professionals. Luckily, these new policies helped corporations to control cyberattacks to a certain extent. After introducing work from home policies, companies also follow further rules to stop hackers from infiltrating networks. Here are a few more protective measures are taken by the corporations: Employee online learning Online learning has never been implemented to a great extent before a pandemic. However, the COVID-19 situation encouraged online learning a lot. Many companies started online sessions to teach their employees how to continue work from home safely. With the help of online sessions, companies taught their workers about the latest scams and how not to fall victim to that. In this way, employees better understood how to protect their devices and data by not clicking and checking unknown websites using the home network. Deployment of VPNs During the pandemic, companies instructed their employees to deploy VPN for home network security. VPNs are great for encrypting traffic, and due to its strong encryption, no hacker can intervene in online traffic. It means that all your data remains safe while traveling online. Moreover, many workers installed VPN in routers to get network-wide protection. You can use a VPN router to keep all IoT devices under VPN protection. The best thing about VPN technology is its encryption. The encryption encodes online data. If your data happens to get intercepted, the information remains unreadable without the decryption code. Hence, VPN also played a significant role in securing data during the pandemic. Access Control As I mentioned earlier, access control was one of the most significant measures adopted by most companies. Companies locked their network access for everyone, even for their own employees. Only a few IT individuals were allowed to access it. This approach dropped cyberattacks drastically and stopped hackers from accessing networks and throwing viruses into that. Installing Antivirus Software This pandemic, cyberattacks have been continuously increased, which pushed businesses to install the most updated antivirus software. Antivirus software helps companies understand upcoming threats so IT managers can take better preventives to combat forecasted threats. Moreover, antivirus programs are great to protect your system from viruses and malware. It also notifies you about all the incoming viruses. Conclusion Shifting from physical to remote work was an unprecedented move. We never saw work from home on such a massive scale. However, it was a great learning opportunity for businesses around the world. On the other hand, work from home approach left various security holes for disruption. The good thing is that companies have realized the importance of cybersecurity. Global businesses have seen massive security concerns that have been grown during COVID-19. Luckily, organizations used cybersecurity tools to curb security breaches better, but new technologies are still needed to keep the space safe and secure. Author Bio Sundas Noor is a technical writer who loves to cover online security insights and create reviews for users to buy VPN software and IoT devices. She’s contributed five years of experience in technical writing and sharing security how-to guides with readers worldwide.

Sundas Noor

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