Since joining his new organization, this is the first time John is working from home. Thanks to the lockdown related to coronavirus situation. He loves his freedom and the flexibility, but he has never read his company’s updated Bring Your Own Device policy. So, he has missed the fact that his personal PC is not protected with the latest software patches or the security updates.
On the other hand, Emma’s personal PC is much faster than her old, heavy laptop that has been provided by her office to work from home during the pandemic situation. So, in order to speed things of, she decided to use her personal USB sticks to transfer large files black and fourth. And after few days she started to work on her personal PC, using a virtual desktop app. However, she is still unaware of the fact that there’s a keylogger hiding in her home pc.
Dave is not liking the apps, his company has asked him to use during the pandemic situation to work from home. He believes, his friends are using much better apps and tools for web conferencing. So, he starts downloading those even though it’s against the policy.
Now I’ve a question for you all. What’s common in all these situations?
Yes! You have guessed it right and there’s no prize in guessing that each of these situation carries grave security and privacy concerns.
And these are just the tip of the icebergs, when it comes to the security incidents that are being created as the global pandemic is changing the way of working around the globe. Currently people around the world are facing a wave of cyber problems that are entirely related to the massive changes currently happening to people, technology and various processes.
While most of these incidents are not a result of any malicious intent, nor performed intentionally. These are a combined result of dated and inadequate training programs. Each of the persons mentioned above are creating a risk of data breach with their online actions without knowing a thing. Most of the security experts believe that, soon organizations hailing from both public and private sectors will have to address numerous number of data breaches without much time for any planning.
Hey! But you might agree with the contrarians and say all these fuss about data breach is way too exaggerated. You can say, this is a health emergency and I’m trying to scare off people with all the technical mumbo jumbo. However, due to this never seen before situation in my life, most of the people around the planet are changing their daily routine and the digital world is becoming much more important than ever to implement social distancing. So, the domino effect of this medical emergency has led to massive never seen before changes, which are eventually leading to security vulnerabilities for processes, people and technology.