The world now knows the advantages that digitization brings. But the pandemic has demonstrated to us not only the advantages of digitization but also the vulnerabilities that it brings.
Tips to revamp your cybersecurity for the post-pandemic era
A few changes in your cybersecurity strategy can help you prevent any possible cybersecurity possibilities post-COVID. Here are some tips by Mr Sonit Jain, CEO of GajShield Infotech.
1. Monitor remote, work from home users
It is inevitable that most of the organizations will not work full strength post COVID. To allow seamless workflow, enterprise applications will be deployed on the cloud. Some members of your remote workforce might access enterprise data through public WiFi networks. Cyber attackers can use this opportunity to tap into your organization’s network. Hence, monitoring cloud access requests will become an inseparable part of any cybersecurity strategy.
2. Strengthen BYOD Security- Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) culture was already popular in many organizations, and the pandemic has now generated a shift by spreading this culture in organizations globally. Employers are asking employees to bring their own devices to minimize the need to work on and come in physical contact with common office devices. The increase in personal devices often increases the surface area of potential vulnerabilities. For instance, a smartphone device can have malicious applications installed that can compromise critical business data. An attacker can promote a malicious application that can help employees to complete their tasks much quicker and initiate a trojan horse attack.
3. Add context to data and data transactions-Phishing attacks have doubled globally and, in some geographies, have reached 600% of previous levels. Bringing context to data can help reduce these numbers.
4. Develop new security policies– Due to the new remote working norm, monitoring the remote workforce will become vital. Hence, you might need to move to new operating models for seamless collaboration and high productivity.
As mentioned earlier, asking employees to bring their own devices would be essential to prevent any possible spread of the virus. Cyber attackers can hack any device and send unnecessary requests to increase network traffic as part of DDoS attacks. You can limit the bandwidth of your network for personal devices to prevent any DDoS attacks. You can also apply application filtering policies to allow data access only through specific applications.
5. Minimize false alerts- Investing false positives is a waste of time and resources, and missing false negatives can increase cybersecurity threats. Hence it is important to minimize false alerts, whether positives or negatives. A contextual intelligence engine can help you minimize false alerts. It allows you to create your custom policies and adds a contextual layer to your cybersecurity system to minimize false alerts. This will allow more time to your cybersecurity team to inspect actual alerts that can lead to security pitfalls.
