Why Cybersecurity Matters in Coronavirus?
Future of Work and Life
The outbreak of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) has caused many educational institutions, workplaces, conferences, and businesses to close temporarily and rely on remote technologies.
The coronavirus is triggering a brand new experience; this sudden switch to remote work, remote learning, and remote life will affect our lifestyle sooner than we think. The way we shop, how we learn, how we work, and eventually how we perceive that.
If we want to see the optimistic side of that pandemic; we can see it as the start of a new era that relies more on digital remote technologies, in different sectors, ones that we didn’t expect to change in the near future.
Accelerated Digitalization
Now, every business is trying to join the digitalization race. Although the digital transformation was not preferable or had been delayed in some sectors, the current situation forced them to declare their presence, especially in sectors like education, medicine, conferences and events, and others.
It will be normal in the coming months to see conferences and events held online, normal to see students taking lectures and lessons through Zoom or Webex normal to have empty offices and run all your communication through emails, slack, or conference calls.
Telemedicine will be used more frequently. Since it’s not clear when this crisis will end, we can be using these remote technologies for a while and maybe continue with them in the future, if it proves their effectiveness.
So, that is Good for Digital Transformation, What is the Problem?
Although #stayhome minimizes the threats of Coronavirus, however, moving our daily life to digital activities will increase other threats, which are the cyber threats. We are listing three risks that cyber security may be facing in the near future:
1- The threat landscape will increase as more services go online
Most organizations won’t have the luxury or the timeframe to test or assess their digital solutions from a security perspective while transforming. This will expose them to threats and risks. The rate of cyber attacks will increase as the rate of more business goes online.
2- New type of online users with minimum awareness
With a lack of awareness, new users will start using different services and will be subject to different attacks like data leakage, phishing, and ransomware.
Basic security tips like using strong passwords, never sharing passwords, don’t click on links, and others are not common knowledge to a huge number of new users this will cause a big spike in numbers of attacks and will definitely impact businesses.
3- New types of attacks will arise out of fear
Like any major global event, coronavirus is no different. Fear of the unknown, not enough data, and curiosity. It will be a golden opportunity for spammers to use it for phishing. And it has already started, dedicated phishing attacks are sending fake emails from WHO (World Health Organization) emails that target users to get their personal info or ask them to pay money as funding.
WHO has published a warning on its official website to protect users from being deceived.
Keeping Yourself Safe
The recent situation of digitalization has opened a window of opportunity for hackers to exploit more flaws in our system.
Hacking and cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated, the impact will be much higher than before as we rely more on online platforms for ordering food, medicine, supplies, and others.
So besides following the safety guidelines of Coronavirus, you need to protect yourself and your business from cyber threats as well.
Further reading to protect yourself online:
Top 10 Tips to Secure your Startup
Work From Home Cybersecurity, Tips, and Risks
Types of Cybersecurity Threats, and How to avoid them?
A Quick Guide to Cybersecurity Incidents and How to Avoid Them?