How to Ensure Cyber Security in The Pandemic

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, companies are accelerating their digital transformation, and cyber security is now a major concern. In this article, TECHVIFY will point out the challenges, costs, as well as ways to protect your organizations from cyber attacks. 

What are the challenges of work-from-home policies companies have to face? 

The challenge, in general, is those home computers are typically not set up to deal with corporate information, so the IT infrastructure needs to be updated with the latest cybersecurity protocols. It may not have anti-virus, anti-malware, backup, firewall configurations, etc. 

Furthermore, average users do not know much about cyber security, so there is a high chance they don’t know what to do and what not to do. 

Unprotected home computers and negligent users will allow hackers to have access to confidential information about your company. Hackers can have access to your employee’s personal computers by sending them click-bait messages that include sketchy links. Once your employees click on that, hackers can download and control your database very easily from afar.

Even though most businesses are aware of the risks of a weak cybersecurity system, they don’t take further steps to avoid it. This is because they currently have to deal with a bigger issue: Lower Income. The pandemic surely has caused many major consequences, and income is the most concerning among them.

So focus on solving the income and money-relating problems, businesses have to put others aside and finger-crossed that those risks won’t happen to their company. Challenging as it is, to be able to survive this pandemic, businesses must try their best to lower the risks as much as possible. 

What are the costs of cyber breaches?

A weak cyber security system can expose your company to cyber risks, which could cost a significant amount of money. And let’s not forget data loss, system breakdown, and so on.

Moreover, if your customers know that your sensitive information has been exposed, they will no longer trust your company. Your business will lose hundreds and thousands of valuable customers, greatly impacting your revenue. 

What’s worse, your customers might sue your company for privacy violations. Those lawsuits can cost your company hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, plus many legal issues and negative impacts on the brand’s image.

Furthermore, it will be very hard to get money from cybersecurity insurance companies since the insurance companies are getting more and more cautious with their terms and conditions regarding this problem. You will also have to reconstruct your company network all over again. 

What should organizations do to ensure their cyber security?

So what can you do to avoid throwing a huge amount of money out of the window because of cyber-attacks? Companies need to make sure the firewall, antivirus software, anti-malware, and VPN configurations are set up correctly, home computers are secured, and data is encrypted or stored on the cloud.

Consider every home computer and device (including mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and PCs) as a potential access point for hackers, so you can understand the importance of having employees’ devices set up securely.

In addition, phishing simulation and cybersecurity training are key to making sure employees do not fall prey to online hoaxes and ransomware attacks. Companies can send out false phishing messages to check who clicks and who does not and then determine who might be the hidden security blackhole to your organization.

Therefore, you can give timely responses and warnings to those employees so that they won’t make the same mistake again when there’s a real cyber breach.

Companies can also hire a managed service provider to go through the system, scan and do auditing and documentation, evaluate the current situation, and decide what needs to be done.

It might take months to set up this whole cyber security system, but since we don’t know when this pandemic is going to end, the costs of weak cyber security are too high compared to what you have to spend. So what are you still waiting for?  Start to establish your system right now!