What are the best COVID-19 cybersecurity tips?

Looking for tips on how to approach cybersecurity during this pandemic?  Let’s explore a few of the most necessary steps.  After all, by now the impact of COVID-19 has likely made its way to your organization, and like countless others, your employees are now working remotely.  Perhaps you have a minimal skeleton crew still on site, but most of the staff is at home.  How can you assure yourself and your customers/users that you still maintain a strong cybersecurity stance during these tumultuous times, where so much has already changed?  We have already seen how cyber criminals are exploiting people’s concerns.  Using phishing schemes and posing as hospitals, major healthcare organizations, or Coronavirus patients, they sneak malware onto a target system.

Unsurprisingly, avoiding this type of deceit is one of the most crucial practices you can adopt during this time.  Teaching your employees how to detect these will be of great benefit.  There is as yet no cure or vaccine for Coronavirus, so if anyone claims to have one if you just click here, all they really have is you in their sights.

There are other important steps you can take to mitigate risk.  With so many employees working from home, the question arises of how secure their WiFi connections are.  Public hotspots should be out of the question, and the employee endpoints must be password protected.   VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) are also recommended, although cyber thieves are also on the hunt for those credentials.  Nor can we ignore the non-digital risks: stolen devices, unattended machines, screens viewable by others as you work on them.  Concentrating on these areas will help employees get in the habit of being more security-forward and mindful of their actions.

Access has become a trickier and more complex issue than before.  If you already restrict access to sensitive information based on necessary function, great.  If not, it’s highly advisable.  Furthermore, whatever security software your firm uses, make sure employees are using it themselves, as well as installing the latest software updates on their own devices to keep their security up to date.  Of course, if the security software doled out to them is faulty, the responsibility rests with management, not the end users.

Here’s an important tip: make sure employees aren’t discussing business operations through standard text messages or social media.  Simple as that.

These are just a few measures firms should take during this period of uncertainty.  However, whether this new normal turns out to be temporary, or extends beyond COVID-19, they will remain good security practices overall.