September 9, 2020 | By stephen

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Malwarebytes Survey Exposes Cybersecurity Risks Of Work-From-Home. Are You Protected?

• Work From Home

In 2020, the business world experienced unprecedented disruption of operations due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This ongoing event has sped up the adoption of a “Work-From Home” (WFH) culture. However, home workers’ telecommuting arrangements have exposed network vulnerabilities within corporate systems that hackers have been quick to exploit.

In a recent survey of more than 200 IT and cybersecurity managers, C-suite executives and directors across the United States, cybersecurity software provider Malwarebytes revealed that 20% of the respondents had faced a security breach related to a remote worker.

Besides losing revenue, 24 percent of the affected businesses had to incur “unexpected expenses” when addressing malware attacks or cybersecurity breaches following the shelter-in-place orders.

Protect Your Business and Remote Workers with a Managed Security Service

With the increase in WFH-related cybersecurity incidents, you need to find ways to protect your business. IT Security that is offered via the cloud or through solutions by Managed Security Service Providers is an effective way to secure your business.

Security-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a proven way for your organization to reduce the risk of a security breach cost-effectively while improving your business’ responsiveness and agility. If you need the latest technologies for the detection, prevention, or response to threats, you should consider deploying managed services.

Let’s examine some of the critical advantages provided by cloud-based security solutions providers:

1. Securing Employees’ Personal Devices

Further increasing the vulnerability scope for hacker attacks, 28 percent of the respondents said that they regularly used unsecured personal devices to carry out work-related tasks. Unfortunately, the report also states that 61 percent of respondents’ businesses did not urge their employees to secure their own devices with antivirus or web filtering software.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) security was already a challenge for enterprises, and the situation is worse with employees using personal devices to connect to corporate networks from home.

There are managed security services to help you control access from employees’ personal devices and enforce some control over laptops, smartphones, and tablets that are not your company’s property.

2. Setup Of Secure Corporate Networking And Cloud Applications

When examining the threat landscape, the Malwarebytes survey noted that cybercriminals are now taking advantage of thousands of unsecured cloud-based services, servers, and corporate VPNs. Forty-five percent of organizations that took part in the poll say that they did not carry out any online privacy or data security analyses of the tools used by their home workers.

According to Malewarebytes Labs director Adam Kujawa, there is a substantial rise in the use of web-based collaboration, communication, data transmission, and data storage, leading to concerns about the security of WFH tools.

Thanks to managed cloud support provided by IT security providers, you can now evaluate your corporate cybersecurity concerning these tools and effectively mitigate threats.

3. Training Your Staff To Recognize And Resist Phishing Attempts

Many cyber-attacks took advantage of the coronavirus pandemic and people’s thirst for information to dupe unsuspecting employees into opening emails and clicking on malicious software links.

Email-borne commercial malware like NetWiredRC and AveMaria allow webcam control, remote desktop access, password and identity theft, etc.

Data gathered by Malwarebytes indicates a 99 percent increase in NetWiredRC detections between January 2020 and June 2020. Similarly, AveMaria saw an enormous bump of over 1,200 percent from January to April.

A SaaS provider will protect your business by providing email support and setting up active spam filtering. Your provider may also set up regular cybersecurity training and testing for your team.

Do Not Let Your Business Become A Cybersecurity Breach Statistic

SaaS has several advantages over traditional IT support methods, notably lower cost, offering centralized management of remote employees and teams, and providing access to the latest cybersecurity tools. Do you worry that employees working from home make your business vulnerable to cyberattacks?

About LeadingIT

LeadingIT offers 24/7, all-inclusive, fast, and friendly technology and cybersecurity support for nonprofits, manufacturers, schools, accounting firms, religious organizations, government, and law offices with 10-200 employees across the Chicagoland area.