UPDATED 21:48 EDT / MARCH 23 2020

SECURITY

As coronavirus spreads, cybersecurity staff contend with increasing attacks, remote workers

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, cybersecurity professionals have never been busier.

Despite some reports of cybercriminals encouraging others to not take advantage of the pandemic, others have instead increased the frequency of their attacks. Hospitals treating coronavirus patients and even a medical company preparing to do a trial for a vaccine have been targeted this month. Even the World Health Organization was targeted by hackers earlier this month.

More of the same seems likely in store. Cybersecurity professionals are faced with not only increasing attacks during the crisis but also dealing with a workforce that is working from home.

“Much of the world has moved to a remote workforce with such great haste that cybersecurity challenges are inevitable,” Rick Holland, chief information security officer and vice president of strategy at digital risk firm Digital Shadows Ltd., told SiliconANGLE. “Once security teams have had an opportunity to come up for air, they should conduct risk assessments and red team exercises of the remote workforce. They should assess the attack surface of their remote workers, and security teams should evaluate potential security controls that need to be deployed. They should consider how adversaries exploit this new operational environment.”

Looking at the broader picture for the industry, Holland said that historically, cybersecurity is a sector of the economy where spending still occurs even in economic downturns. “There are risks to smaller and emerging firms but sales revenue and the amount of capital raised provides resilience,” he said. “To avoid going extinct, startups must have enough funds to cover operating expenses over the next few months to weather the COVID-19 storm.”

Jack Kudale, founder and chief executive of cyber insurance company Cowbell Cyber Inc., agreed but said cybersecurity priorities will shift along with the technology in use. “To prevent protection gaps, cybersecurity should ideally evolve ahead of technology,” he said. “The best we can do is to continuously assess risk exposures, giving businesses visibility into risk areas and in our case, gaps in cyber insurance coverage.”

Steve Durbin, managing director of the Information Security Forum, noted that the change to remote working is the new business normal. “Remote working and remote business interactions will identify new opportunities, new ways of working that we would not otherwise have spotted and I think will also give rise to a number of new ventures that are able to seize the opportunities that will arise,” he said.

Wim Van Campen, senior director for Europe, Middle East and Africa business at mobile security company Lookout Inc., warned that cybercriminals will increasingly look to exploit vulnerabilities across employees working from home or from other remote locations.

“Home networks are inherently less secure than corporate networks and although some people are used to working from home, others may not be,” he noted. “Consequently, many newly remote employees will have to overcome some basic remote working challenges such as bandwidth constraints, access to a reliable computer and proper space for working. In many cases, people will need to use their own personal computers if they don’t have a corporate one, which presents a security and endpoint visibility challenge for employers.”

Photo: Peterson Air Force Base

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