It turns out that the COVID-19 outreach is not only a health , social and economic danger, but also a cybersecurity crisis. In the fields of remote communication and business continuity, the pandemic has raised new problems for corporations.
Employees use various Internet platforms for improved remote work for better business continuity. When companies and individuals have begun to rely more on technology and are busy battling the pandemic, there are now plenty of options for attackers to threaten them more than ever.
According to the April PWC report, the number of security threats to the Indian company doubled in March 2020, a 100 percent increase from Jan 2020 between March 17 and 20, particularly what is more worrying.
The Union Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology (MeITY), Sanjay Dhotre, said India saw more than 350,000 cyberattacks in the second quarter, three times the number of events registered in the first quarter of 2020. He also pointed out that, until August 2020, there were 700,000 cybersecurity incidents.
Key Cybersecurity Crises in Numbers
31 percent of enterprises worldwide experience at least one cybersecurity incident every day, according to the ACRONIS Cyber Readiness Study 2020. India, however, registered twice as many cyber attacks per day, where phishing, DDoS, video conferencing, leveraging vulnerable services, and malware compose most of the cyber attacks.
As they reached the highest point during this pandemic, the phishing campaign is the most alarming assault. While malware has reached fewer numbers, India remains a more important problem, reporting almost twice as many malware issues as the global average.
In addition, 39% of all surveyed companies witnessed an assault on video conferencing. Among them, the most affected nations are India, Canada, Switzerland, and the UK.
Coronavirus-themed phishing emails and malicious websites alleging valuable COVID-19 details have emerged as the company’s top threats. According to the Seqrite report, 400,000 new ransomware assaults were also reported from April to June 2020.
Most of these cyber-attacks have been accomplished by the manipulation of compromised services through gaining access to a remote system.
Why is India So Vulnerable to Cyberattacks?
The NITI Aayog report notes that India ranks 3rd in the list with the highest number of internet users worldwide after the USA & China. Increased use of the Internet and mobile technology. There is a huge increase in the number of cyber attack incidents in India and worldwide, with the exponential rise in Internet and cell phone users.
Businesses are more focused on maintaining business continuity with streamlined activities than bridging the holes in their remote networks. Ignoring internal security risks. If sensitive data flows between different departments without a proper monitoring and logging procedure, if any attack occurs, it becomes difficult to identify the loopholes.
With rising external threats, an enterprise can not be 100% prepared for the ever-increasing external threats. Just a few Indian businesses, including Web Application Firewalls, maintain security measures in place to track external threats and avoid cyberattack incidents as and when they occur.
Remote Work Observable Weak Points: Weak Security Methods, Insufficient Control, and Exposed Servers (DNS, VPN, RDP, etc.) are the key weak points that are exposed during the sudden change to remote work.
In addition, many workers typically neglect personal hygiene for online protection. Employees start to access their personal emails as well as social media sites on their official computer with this ‘work from anywhere community,’
Overall, cyber-attacks can easily happen across unsecured personal accounts with the mixing of personal and work-life online.
Missing Cloud Technology Skills Several businesses have embraced cloud technology to ensure quick access to data from any device and from anywhere.
However, to maintain and secure APIs, SaaS, or containers, they don’t have enough in-house resources. The growing number of cloud architectures that are poorly designed would eventually open doors for attackers.
The Pandemic Landscape Demands Modern Protection
Here are the golden guidelines to keep you from latest cybersecurity incidents:
Train the workforce on safety standards
Be careful with email attachments, links or text, especially with a subject line related to COVID-199
Solid Remote Work Policy Frame
Using only trusted sources such as legal websites for up-to – date data
Do not share your financial or personal information in an unknown person’s email or phone calls.
Promoting the use of office facilities only for official purposes
Don’t reuse passwords between various applications and accounts
Take and separately store data backups
Using Authentication for Multi-Factor
Cloud-based WAF, such as AppTrana, a next-generation cybersecurity defence suite that includes vulnerability assessments, virtual patching, zero false positives, prevention of DDoS attacks, and many more features, will modernise the stack.
The Enclosure
Attackers lead the learning curve in the cybersecurity space, with security professionals following the lead to improve preventive steps. This situation is beginning to shift, however, with advanced technologies.
The next-gen monitoring tools for threats and predictive analytics go beyond the rule-based framework and recognise cyber risks, while flagging emerging threats safely and easily.
With appropriate national cybersecurity awareness and comprehensive strategies in place, enterprises should be able to effectively combat cyber threats in the future.
