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Tom Muleya-Fraud Insight
The global emergency of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 has impacted the world in ways never thought possible. The novel coronavirus has fundamentally shifted how people live by changing the behaviour both amongst business and community.
The “Stay at home” order has been widespread and changed human daily routines, and the way they work.
The pandemic “pushed Businesses over the technology tipping point” by accelerating digitisation that saw consumers flooding online services as access to physical structures closed.
Although this change in lifestyle has had some positive impact in reducing physical contact and minimised the chances of spreading the virus, the changing conditions of business have driven an opportunistic uplift in online crime and fraud where Covid-cyber fraudsters have switched tactics and are exploiting gaps in “working from home”.
While there is no argument that cyber-crime has been a challenge in the pre-Covid-19 period, the attacks have somewhat increased in the Covid-19 era due to increased usage of online services. Thus Covid-19 has ushered in a new era of cyber-crime and online fraud.
Cyber fraudsters are masters at exploiting fear, uncertainty and change, to probe for weaknesses they can monetise. They moved swiftly, adapting to phishing campaigns, hunting out remote security gaps, and preying on the vulnerable. This has seen a rise in hacking, card cloning, and identity theft and ransom ware scams.
The current Researches that have been conducted show that most cyber-fraud and theft cases which are reported occur on a new landscape of “Working from Home”.
The BIS Bulletin No.37 (January 2021) indicated that the financial institutions (Banks and Insurers) have been hit by hackers relatively more often than other business sectors during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mass migration to “work from home” has made financial institutions staff more vulnerable resulting in increased insider fraud and cyber related fraud.
While the BIS Bulletin identified financial institutions as being on the higher receiving hand in terms of cyber-attacks, all corporate business is facing the same fate, experiencing cyber fraud and theft as a result of employees working from home.
Since working from home (WFH) and online transacting is now the new normal, Corporate Business should put in place strong measures to safeguard corporate data and customer information.
In the Covid-19 cyber scams involving working from home, employees have been identified as the “weakest link” in the Corporate Security System.
The “working from home” strategy has serious security gaps due to poor IT infrastructure and this results in bad internet connectivity.
It is common knowledge that when someone transacts on the internet or conducts business online, at that moment their security is compromised and are at the risk of cyber fraudsters.
This therefore points to the fact that employees working from home are even exposed to high risk as they conduct corporate business on a compromised security system with weak internet connectivity.
Apart from employees operating under a compromised security system susceptible to hacking, phishing and identity theft, some employees working from home have quickly lost business ethics.
Instead of becoming corporate data protectors, they have turned into corporate data manipulators due to remote supervision.
This is an inescapable reality; the business sector has to face head-on, in order to survive the negative impact of Covid-19.
Since today we are dealing with the employee as the weakest link in the Corporate Security System, let’s look at some of the ways that can minimise the threats.
Problems are caused by humans; equally, humans (employees) are solutions to the problems posed by Covid-cyber fraudsters exploiting the security gap of working from home.
The business executives and management should enhance a sense of employee awareness in promoting protection of corporate data and customer personal information.
Management should be clear on any breach in conduct, that such actions will attract harsh discipline and criminal prosecution without hesitation.
Management should also ensure that all employees that are tasked with handling corporate data and customer personal information are adequately trained in order to enhance their capacity of responsibility as they handle corporate business online.
Get empowered by Fraud Insight and prevent or minimize cyber-fraud attacks in the world of business in the era of Covid-19. Watch out for the next issue as we look at some challenges and prevention measures of “Working from Home”.
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Tom Muleya is a Detective Assistant Inspector working under the Criminal Investigations Department, Harare.
Online Reporter