COVID-19 has completely changed our world from six months ago, as we continue to battle the grave health implications, face extended stay at home orders, and grapple with the insurmountable ramifications on our economy. The pandemic has also forever changed the cyber threat landscape, with our workforce becoming more dispersed, and potentially more vulnerable, than ever as organizations switch out of the confines of their offices and move entire data streams to their laptops and home offices. On top of this, Salesforce has announced it is ending its Data Recovery service on July 31st, which is putting all of the data protection responsibilities, and the dire consequences that comes along with it, on the backs of the customer. 

Here, we took a look to see what companies within the Security and Patrol Service industry took PPP Loans, and the impact on the industry.

As the head of information security for a technology company with more than a thousand (now mostly-remote) employees, the COVID-19 pandemic has been — among other adjectives — an educational experience. And while it hasn’t been completely smooth sailing, I believe one of the reasons we were able to transition so quickly to remote work with relatively few hiccups is that we established practices to withstand precisely this type of scenario long before the virus swept through our community. 

Counterfeiters do not take time off. At its core, counterfeiting preys upon our vulnerabilities and takes advantage of the average customer at any cost. This is particularly true right now during the coronavirus pandemic, the most inconvenient and vulnerable moment in generations. In the midst of mass shortages and colossal demands for certain products, especially in the health field, the counterfeit community has seen a golden opportunity. Over the past few months, tens of millions of new counterfeit products have been seized or identified on the web. These include fraudulent face masks, ventilators, disinfectants and testing kits.

As consumers increasingly turn to online shopping for essential and non-essential goods while at home, fraudsters have adapted their technique to use more sophisticated tactics against consumers, banks and merchants.

With telecommuting here to stay, now is the perfect time to re-examine just how much network access you are giving your users and machines. You might be shocked to see how open your network really is. Most organizations allow more access than their users or machines will ever need or should ever have – this excessive trust is what allows attackers who get into the network to spread and cause a lot of damage.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense (DoD) announced an agreement with U.S.-based Pfizer Inc. for large-scale production and nationwide delivery of 100 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in the US following the vaccine’s successful manufacture and approval.

The United States Department of Justice charged two Chinese hackers with global computer intrusion campaign to target intellectual property and confidential business information, including COVID-19 research. 

As companies begin to strategize how their employee office structure will look over the next several months – be it phasing in a portion of the workforce into the office or considering a fully remote workforce -  top of mind will be the organization’s security posture and that IT teams can support the needs of employees and the business in a capacity that ensures a smooth, secure transition.