This new world is putting a strain on organizations’ digital security defenses. First, malicious actors are increasingly leveraging coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) as a theme to target organizations and to prey upon the fears of their employees. Our weekly COVID-19 scam roundups have made this reality clear.

Second, organizations are working to mitigate the risks associated with suddenly having a large remote workforce. Lamar Bailey, director of security research and development for Tripwire, elaborated on some of these risks in a recent blog post for the State of Security:

We are seeing an unprecedented number of remote users on home and public internet services accessing their employer and school resources. This opens up these organizations to more risk from all of the remote users. IT departments are monitoring network bandwidth, VPNs, and access controls to make sure employees can still do their jobs. It is putting a strain on the organization infrastructure and the various internet providers.

The question is: how are organizations dealing with these challenges? And do they feel that their organizations are just as secure as they were before the outbreak of COVID-19?

To answer this question, Tripwire decided to commission Dimensional Research to survey 345 IT security professionals in April. Their responses helped to provide insights into how organizations are addressing the digital security effects of COVID-19.

The Rise of Coronavirus-Related Attacks

63 percent said they have experienced COVID-1 related attacks

Given all of the types of scams we’ve featured in our weekly scam roundups, it’s no wonder that organizations have seen their fair share of coronavirus-themed digital attacks. Indeed, 63% of survey respondents indicated to Dimensional Research that their organizations had suffered COVID-19 related ransomware, phishing and/or social engineering attacks. (Overall, 61% of IT security pros said that those attempts had been unsuccessful, yet 2% revealed that their organizations had suffered a breach.)

Acknowledging (Read more...)