With several organisations across India implementing ‘work from home’ for their employees due to the coronavirus pandemic, hackers are turning their attention to company networks and personal computers with few firewalls and security solutions.
Over 20 lakh employees are likely to work from home in the next few weeks, but the confidentiality of their data remains a concern, according to leading experts.
“Threat actors are lurking into this phenomenon as an opportunity. Multiple instances of malicious, automated emails have been reported in several continents, including India, that are getting spooled with ‘Coronavirus’ as a theme,” said Sanjay Katkar, Joint Managing Director and CTO, Quick Heal Technologies.
Businesses that are unprepared for work-from-home scenarios are likely to have employees using personal devices that don’t have the same level of security as their corporate devices. In such scenarios, businesses and their employees must ensure the security of their data.
According to a recent survey, nearly 40 per cent of people around the world said they don’t receive technological support from their employer when they work from home or a public place. A reported 28 per cent of Indians are unaware of their router’s web administrative interface.
Jaya Baloo, chief information security officer at Avast, said that employees should use pre-approved laptops and smartphones to access corporate materials.
“These devices should have business-grade security solutions installed on them and be controlled by the company IT department, if applicable,” she added.
According to Devashish Sharma, CTO, Flock, the workplace collaboration and communication platform, the first step is to use a secure workplace collaboration platform that enables seamless communication across teams.
“The next step is to build awareness among employees about the risk and repercussions of a security breach, for this the top leadership has to educate themselves first about security practices,” said Sharma.
It is often a misconception that large enterprises are more at risk when it comes to data breach.
“Small and medium enterprises too should take steps towards educating every individual in the organisation. Additionally it is extremely vital to empower the IT team to take decisions around security by helping them undertake training and courses that are relevant to their profile,” Sharma said.
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