Social engineering is a term that refers to efforts by hackers and cybercriminals to use people — rather than technology — to gain access to sensitive systems and information. It’s a problem that information security experts have been wrestling with for years and one that, in the midst of COVID-19, has become both more prevalent and more challenging.
Eighty percent of companies say that an increased cybersecurity risk caused by human factors has posed a challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in times of heightened stress. This is according to Cyberchology: The Human Element, a new report that explores the role employees and their personality play in keeping organisations safe from cyber threats. Including that:
A third wave – feels more like a third tsunami. Many haven’t returned to the office; some may end up back in work-from-home scenarios. While workers may feel safe at home, false senses of complacency can easily mask very real cyber threats. Cybercriminals don’t pause for pandemics. With the increase in remote work, an explosion in cybercriminal activity, like phishing, has followed. Not only is phishing still prevalent, but it’s rising much like that third wave.
Cybersecurity teams struggle with a lack of visibility into threats, endpoint devices, access privileges, and other essential security controls necessary for a robust cybersecurity posture. Without full visibility into their entire digital ecosystem, infosec teams cannot fully secure the assets on their networks or effectively prioritize the most serious threats. Below, I dive into how security professionals are still fighting the battle between effectively viewing serious threats and communicating cyber risk to company leadership.
In this ongoing virtual environment, organizations remain highly vulnerable to the significant cybersecurity risks exposed by widespread remote work - business email compromise (BEC), in particular. How did business email compromise become such a serious threat for organizations, and why should cyber insurance be top of mind right now, as a result? Let’s dive in.
With the healthcare industry expected to spend $125 billion on cybersecurity from 2020 to 2025, dollars must be spent for maximum efficiency. The question is, how to allocate those funds most effectively at a time when cybercriminals have placed a huge target on hospitals, research labs, pharmaceuticals and insurance carriers.
Organizations need to take a layered approach to security to protect their organizations and sensitive patient data. The smartest approach is to start at the perimeter and work back toward existing enterprise protections – here’s how to do that.
AppOmni released findings of their latest survey highlighting the security concerns of cloud SaaS applications as they become more essential for enabling remote workers.
A new Incident Response (IR) threat report by Secureworks reveals that cybercriminals are targeting vulnerabilities created by the pandemic-driven worldwide transition to remote work. The report is based on hundreds of incidents the company’s IR team has responded to since the start of the pandemic.
Criminals are leveraging elevated interest in COVID-19 to send emails to unsuspecting people to infect computers with ransomware, malware or other computer viruses. And why not? According to Forbes, the COVID-19 crisis has turned the U.S. workforce into a work-from-home army, giving cybercriminals new, less secure, access points for cyber viruses and phishing attacks, revealing vulnerabilities in cybersecurity strategies for the coronavirus crisis. And since there’s a tremendous curiosity for coronavirus information — people are more likely to click without checking the credibility of the source.
Today, as an increasing number of organizations, including top tech companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook, have announced extended remote work plans, IT teams must ensure employee devices are secured to sustain the long haul. With IT burnout high, user awareness low, and malicious activity rising, this is often easier said than done. Here are top three tips for IT teams to ensure employee devices remain secure as remote work looms.