‘New normal’ needs more security measures to minimise cyber risks

Tom Muleya

Fraud Insight

Business managers should tighten corporate security to curb Covid-19 vulnerabilities of “working from home” (WFH).

The global emergency of the novel coronavirus from 2020 has impacted the world in many ways, and has caused a major shift in the business climatic conditions. 

The “Stay at Home” order is now the new language that is driving business operations across the global landscape in order to curb or minimise coronavirus infections.  

The previous article on Fraud Insight indicated that the coronavirus pandemic has “pushed businesses over the technology tipping point” by accelerating digitisation that saw the emergency of online services.

The changed business conditions have driven an opportunistic uplift in online crime and fraud, especially Covid-cyber fraud which is exploiting gaps in “working from home”. 

Due to the new business model, business management needs to re-think on corporate information security and come up with drastic and swift measures to curb Covid-19 related cyber fraud.

As the Covid-19 period is characterised by experiences of increased usage of online services, where consumers are flooding this new market, proportionate increase of online frauds is also recorded. 

The previous article looked specifically at an employee working from home and showed that the employee is the “weakest-link” in the entire corporate security system. 

The model has enabled increased insider or internal frauds due to remote supervision. 

The recent SolarWinds hack underscores risks from WFH that business management need to take seriously. 

In December 2020, it was reported that hackers inserted malware into SolarWinds’ product, Orion, used by thousands of companies and government agencies around the world (FBI-CISA-ODNI, 2020).  

The consequences of cyber-attacks can be severe if we consider the SolarWinds attack indicated above. Business disruptions and IT system failures can damage the integrity and availability of assets and services.  

Data breaches compromise the confidentiality of sensitive data, coupled with financial and reputational losses. 

Due to the increased usage of remote desktop protocol (RDP) and virtual private network (VPN), unless well managed, cyber hackers may continue to penetrate IT systems and commit Covid-19 cyber related frauds.                                                                                                                                                                                 

The corporate cyber security system involves three major factors ie hardware and software factor, human factor, and process factor. 

The human factor was partially covered in the previous article that covered the challenges of employees working from home. 

The hardware factor covers the whole range of technologies that are used to store or keep corporate data such as computers and computer devices and backups.

 In the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, where the majority of corporate activities have been moved to the digital world, and corporate data is in personal charge of some individual employees working from home, more security control measures are demanded from management and business executives to minimise cyber risks.

The software factor covers the whole range of technologies used to protect data and sensitive corporate information and includes latest software, antivirus, and app updates for corporate devices. 

Again, management is faced with a mammoth task to ensure that data is not compromised and as such, huge investment needs to be made for software upgrading in order to prevent cyber threats. 

The process factor covers a whole range of procedures that are employed to minimise access to corporate data and sensitive information such as passwords, reporting of suspicious emails, and authentication system amongst others. 

In this era of Covid-19, survival of businesses from cyber fraudsters depends on management and their strategic power to prevent cyber risks and threats. 

The ZRP Outpost, January 2020, lamented that cyber-crimes threats were worrying SARPCCO, thus underscoring the need to deal with this technology-based evil.

Get empowered by Fraud Insight and prevent or minimise cyber-fraud attacks in the world of business in the era of Covid-19. 

Watch out for the next instalment as we look at some challenges and prevention measures for cyber crime.

For your feedback, WhatsApp line: 0772 764 043, or e-mail:[email protected]. 

Tom Muleya is a Detective Assistant Inspector working under the Criminal Investigations Department in Harare.