Intelligent CISO Issue 37 | Page 6

Pandemic IT security survey exposes critical gap
L the results of its pandemic cybersecurity survey designed to capture US employees ’ sentiment towards how seriously companies have taken cybersecurity since the start of COVID-19 . Companies have not done enough to prevent heightened security risk in light of remote working , as nearly four in 10 ( 36 %) respondents have been , or know someone who has been , impacted by a cybersecurity attack since the start of COVID-19 .
Oman sees 30 % drop in COVID-19 cyberattacks to 640 in Q3 2020
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news

Pandemic IT security survey exposes critical gap

ynx Software has announced

L the results of its pandemic cybersecurity survey designed to capture US employees ’ sentiment towards how seriously companies have taken cybersecurity since the start of COVID-19 . Companies have not done enough to prevent heightened security risk in light of remote working , as nearly four in 10 ( 36 %) respondents have been , or know someone who has been , impacted by a cybersecurity attack since the start of COVID-19 .

Lynx ’ s survey findings of 1,000 working Americans indicates that a large majority of respondents ( 69 %) are more concerned about cybersecurity
risks during COVID-19 than they were before the pandemic – as perimeterbased security is no longer possible so device infrastructure becomes even more vulnerable . Worryingly , less than half ( 49 %) of respondents said their organisation ’ s cybersecurity has strengthened since the start of the pandemic . Employees are mostly concerned about how this could impact their data privacy as 54 % of respondents indicated that the biggest cybersecurity concern they have is their personal data being compromised .
“ Organisations of all types need to prioritise finding ways to secure endpoints for their employees ’ devices , whether they are on laptops , edge servers or anything between , especially in the remote , Zero Trust environment we are living in ,” said Arun Subbarao , Vice President of Engineering and Technology at Lynx Software .

Oman sees 30 % drop in COVID-19 cyberattacks to 640 in Q3 2020

man has seen an impressive

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30 % drop in the number of
COVID-19-related cyberattacks from 920 in Q2 2020 to 640 in Q3 2020 , according to new research from Trend Micro Incorporated , a cloud security vendor .
In Q3 2020 , Oman ’ s COVID-19 related cyberattacks included : 610 email spam attacks , down 27 % from 833 in Q2 2020 ; 29 malicious URL hits , down 67 % from 87 in Q2 2020 ; and one malware detection , up from 0 in Q2 2020 .
“ Oman ’ s 30 % decrease in COVID-19 related cyberattacks is an impressive signal that Oman ’ s IT decision-makers are taking pandemic-related attacks seriously ,” said Assad Arabi , Managing Director – Gulf Cluster , Trend Micro .
23,696 malicious URL hits and 335 malware detections , according to Trend Micro ’ s Smart Protection Network .
MENA ’ s COVID-19 attacks were down by 54 %, with a 29 % decrease in email spam attacks , an 82 % decrease in malicious URL hits , but a 4.5-fold increase in malware detections .
“ While Oman and the Middle East are beginning to emerge from the pandemic , organisations must continue to protect their employees and malicious URLs and files that are embedded with malware ,” added Arabi . “ One of the biggest concerns is about phishing emails related to COVID-19 health and safety measures .”
During Q3 2020 , the 14 countries of the MENA region experienced a total of 125,219 COVID-19 related cyberattacks , including 101,188 email spam attacks ,
Assad Arabi , Managing Director , Gulf Cluster , Trend Micro
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