TALKING
business
‘‘
As we navigate the challenges posed
by COVID-19 and the need to halt
the spread of the deadly pandemic,
many of us are settling into a routine of
working from home. This can pose many
difficulties, including how to maintain focus,
how to balance other priorities, such as
childcare, and how to be productive without
requisite tools or dedicated office space, not
to mention the struggle to avoid raiding the
whole snack cupboard in one day.
There are compromises to be found for many
of these challenges in what we hope will be a
relatively short-term arrangement. What we
must not compromise on is security.
Many cybercriminals are seeking to exploit
our thirst for information as a vector for
attack. Most commonly, as with other highprofile
events, attackers are using COVID-
19-themed phishing emails, which purport
to deliver official information on the virus,
to lure individuals to click malicious links
that download Remote Administration Tools
(RATs) on their devices.
In addition, there have been multiple reported
cases of malicious COVID-19-related Android
applications that give attackers access to
smartphone data or encrypt devices for
ransom. The global pandemic has also led
to the creation of more than 100,000 new
COVID-19 web domains, which should be
treated with suspicion, even though not all
of them are malicious. Palo Alto Networks is
continually updating the latest COVID-19-
related cyberthreats.
Attackers are also taking advantage of the
fact that many people who are working from
home have not applied the same security
on their networks that would be in place in
a corporate environment, or that enterprises
haven’t deployed the right technologies or
corporate security policies to ensure that
all corporate-owned or corporate-managed
devices have the exact same security
protections, regardless of whether they’re
connected to an enterprise network or an
open home Wi-Fi network.
Both business leaders and individual
employees have critical roles and
responsibilities in securing their organisation
and in ensuring that cyberattacks do not
further compound the already disrupted
work environment.
Ryan Olson, Vice President, Threat
Intelligence (Unit 42) at Palo Alto Networks
“
THERE ARE
COMPROMISES
TO BE FOUND FOR
MANY OF THESE
CHALLENGES
IN WHAT WE
HOPE WILL BE
A RELATIVELY
SHORT-TERM
ARRANGEMENT.
How businesses can respond
In this critical time, business leaders have
a heightened responsibility to set clear
expectations about how their organisations
are managing security risk in the new work
environments, leveraging new policies
and technologies and empowering their
employees. It’s important that messages
on security come from the very top of an
organisation and that good examples
are set from the start. Here are three
recommendations for business leaders.
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