Tech Professionals Like Working From Home

When the COVID-19 lockdown hit, companies worldwide transitioned millions of employees from working in offices to working at home. There were bumps to be sure, but from an IT perspective the process generally went smoothly.

What’s happened since then is enough to keep IT security professionals up at night.

“Once the transition was complete,” says an article on CSO.com, “Organizations found their attack surface had changed immensely and threat actors attempted to seize upon the opportunity. Phishing, brute-force and malware attacks surged while the number of endpoints connecting to corporate networks ballooned.”

We blogged about this subject a few weeks ago when a survey of IT leaders reported that 41% of them had experienced more security attacks than ever.

In light of the collection of surveys and studies in the CSO.com article, that now looks like an understatement.

Though the study we referenced in our post said in the early days of the lockdown companies were spending an extra $15 billion a week on IT, CSO cites a study that helps explain why: 66% of organizations had no pandemic preparedness plan in place. Others, including those that did, failed to account for the sheer scale of having every employee working remotely.

Infoblox’s COVID-19 Challenges for the Borderless Enterprise report said 38% of organizations shifted funds from cybersecurity to provide for remote worker access. 46%, however, shifted IT resources to shore up the security of their networks. Another study cited by CSO.com tells us that 60% of organizations that adopted work-from-home technology accelerated or bypassed their normal privacy/security reviews.

Consequently says CSO.com, chief information security officers “should go back and ensure that any checks that were skipped or accelerated have been redone to ensure all the risks have been accounted for.”

The article cites Zoom’s security issues as one example of a remote tool that was quickly adopted by many without considering security.

The most worrisome part of the article by CSO editor Dan Swinhoe cites a baker’s dozen of studies, surveys and reports of cyberattacks skyrocketing during the lockdown with many continuing unabated since. Here’s a sample:

• Supply chain attacks rose 38% since the start of the pandemic;
• Phishing incidents rose 220% at the height of the pandemic;
• Ransomware attacks spiked more than 100%;
• Insider-threats increased 27%;
• RDP brute-force attacks (attempts to remotely control a computer or computer system) grew 400%.

With the majority of companies expecting more employees than ever to work from home even when the pandemic ends, a PwC Insights Survey found 96% of organizations saying they are adjusting their cybersecurity strategy due to COVID-19. 50% said cybersecurity and privacy will be baked into every business decision or plan.

“This focus on security,” observes CSO, “Should provide CISOs with more influence at the most senior levels of the business.”

Photo by Jefferson Santos on Unsplash

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Now organizations in sectors well beyond the pioneers in finance are investing in blockchain to protect data, decentralize processes and facilitate asset and data transfer.

“It’s an appealing model for many sectors, promising transparency and trust as it helps make value exchange possible,” says a SmartBrief article. Although focusing mostly on the financial sector, which is where blockchain found its earliest uses, the article mentions the steady creep of the technology into other industries and even slowly becoming commoditized as “blockchain as a service.”

“Amazon and Microsoft both currently offer BaaS, and enterprises as well as startups are taking advantage of it,” says SmartBrief. Citing a Gartner survey of CIOs, the article notes that “60% expected their firms to start or continue adopting blockchain-based technology between now and 2023.”

Earlier this year, Deloitte issued a blockchain trends report. Besides describing the evolving technology and the features each different approach offers, Deloitte found that some of the fastest growth in blockchain investments was coming in such unexpected industries as professional services – a sector that includes the staffing and employment industry – and energy and resources. In each of those 38% and 43% respectively of the firms surveyed were spending at least $5 million each on blockchain initiatives.

Not unexpectedly, the largest percentage of businesses investing in blockchain were in technology, media and telecom.

“More organizations in more sectors — such as technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, health care, and government — are expanding and diversifying their blockchain initiatives,” Deloitte observes.

Like the financial sector, life sciences and health care deal with highly sensitive medical data they must protect or face legal consequences. Those two sectors are where blockchain “can have a more immediate and meaningful impact,” says Deloitte. They are in an industry, the report explains, “In which data transparency, speed of access, immutability, traceability, and trustworthiness can provide the information necessary for life-altering decisions.”

Interestingly, Gartner assigns a similar importance – not life or death, but still vital – to blockchain’s value to media.

“Organizations and governments are now turning to technology to help counter fake news, for example, by using blockchain technology to authenticate news photographs and video, as the technology creates an immutable and shared record of content that ideally is viewable to consumers,” Gartner said.

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