FEATURE: CYBERSECURITY
The COVID-19 pandemic has
resulted in many changes in
the working world. Vladimir
M. Yordanov, Senior Director
of Solution Engineering,
Gigamon Asia Pacific, explains
the cyberthreats which
organisations now face and
how to tackle them.
So, what can we expect on the cybersecurity
front for the rest of 2020? How can
organizations and businesses prepare for the
new tomorrow? What challenges and attack
types should they be ready for?
It is important to understand that with
cyberattacks, the size of the organization does
not matter. According to the 2019 Verizon
Data Breach Investigations Report, 43% of all
breaches involved small businesses.
Following a review of cybersecurity threats
that potentially target businesses, my
company has compiled a list of the types we
are most likely to see over the next year.
COVID-19 is having a dramatic
impact on people’s lives, families
and communities, across the
world and throughout Asia
Pacific. Organizations and businesses are
affected and having to adapt by changing
the way employees work and collaborate;
offices are closed, people are working
remotely and services and applications have
been shifted to the cloud.
Dependence and reliance on remote access
and communications increased dramatically
overnight. All these changes have brought
new cybersecurity challenges and risks.
Yet the situation is hardly a precedent.
Cybersecurity has captured the headlines
and been a focus for governments,
organizations and business for years. Back
in 2007, researchers at the University of
Maryland conducted a study on threat
activity and concluded that hackers across
the globe were launching attacks every 39
seconds. Thirteen years later this figure is
even higher.
• Attacks on remote worker
environment and endpoint security –
Remote workspace and endpoint security
is one of the top concerns of CISOs today.
Remote workers often work with minimal
security, missing out on the layered and
sophisticated cybersecurity defences that
the corporate office provides.
In addition, most end-users are not
cybersecurity savvy and lack the assistance
of office InfoSec support. So, they often miss
the signs that indicate potential phishing
attacks, common cybersecurity threats or an
indication of compromise.
• Phishing attacks – Since the pandemic
struck, phishing has increased 600%
while nearly 78% of cyber-espionage
incidents in 2019 were related to
phishing. Cybercriminals generally use
phishing to steal employee usernames
and passwords which enable attackers to
masquerade as a legitimate employee
and manoeuvre undetected through a
company’s networks – either on-premises
or cloud.
APAC cyberthreats: Security
needs to emulate process
and risk management
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