Take your Cybersecurity more seriously now with COVID-19
With the COVID-19 pandemic upon us, life is disrupted, different, and often nothing like what you would have ever expected. Before the pandemic, the decisions you would make with IT and cybersecurity were deemed as accessible risk, but now that you are most likely running your business differently, you need to handle your IT and cybersecurity differently. Especially now, since the hackers are taking advantage of the situation and are going after companies of all sizes in force, you need to think differently about cybersecurity and expect the worst to happen to you. Even if you are doing good for others…
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another. – Thomas Jefferson
You may have seen stories on the news about companies that are pivoting their business to help others. The companies that were making car parts and now they are making medical supplies. The company owner had to temporarily close down so he designed a new ventilator. The list of doing good goes on, but what these companies did not know is that they are now targets for hackers.
A Cybersecurity Do Good Story: Protected By Solid IT Hygiene
We have a manufacturing client that decided to do good and help the medical community. They realized that they could manufacture hospital masks and gowns to keep their employees working and helping the medical community. Within days they designed a prototype, had it approved by a hospital and started manufacturing them for hospitals across the country. Awesome!
That is until the good press inadvertently put a target on them. Within days of the news stories, they started getting hacked. Phishing attempts were rampant and attacks on their network and email went off the charts. Thankfully, they were already doing most of the rights things when it came to their cybersecurity protection so there was no real disruption or drama.
Making Smarter Pandemic IT and Cybersecurity Decisions
The ground is fertile for cybercriminals. Businesses are frantically moving to virtual operating models to keep their enterprises running. In the rush, many firms are opening huge security gaps by relying on “on-premise” thinking, using untested or mismatched technologies, and not documenting new protocols. To make smarter pandemic IT and cybersecurity decisions, firms must begin with basic IT hygiene, THEN, combine additional layers of security that protect the enterprise in its new virtual business model. I’m sure that you do not want to combine ransomware damaged to the already significant pandemic-related financial damage this moment has delivered.
You can dig deeper into this subject below.
If you want some recommendations, please contact me. I’ll be glad to give you the names of some of the tools our clients leverage. Shoot me an email (jahlberg[at]waident.com) or give me a call (630-547-7011)
(NOTE: We do NOT share our tool names via our posts. Cybersecurity best practices recommend NOT too because doing so creates unneeded risks as hackers are always searching for vulnerabilities).
Dig Deeper
Ransomware Best Practice Checklist
Cost of Ransomware Prevention Versus Recovery
How Do I Know if My Business Computers Have Been Hacked
