As a greater proportion of the workforce is spending time at home working remotely, it is important to keep security even more in mind than usual. Not only are people apt to be online more, they will also be outside of the protections that your business provides. This gives scammers an opportunity to embrace.

COVID-19 Scams

With the coronavirus still commanding the public’s attention, people have a lot on their mind, and for many, more time on their hands. How often have you gone looking for information online? It’s a pretty good wager that the total number is considerable and will only rise as time passes. Unfortunately, not everything that is online is trustworthy.

Knowing that many will react in the same way, cybercriminals have begun to set up dummy websites that capitalize on just this.

A few recent cybersecurity studies have noted a few concerning statistics. For instance, out of the 1.2 million new COVID-19-related domains created during the weeks between March 9 to April 26, over 86,600 of them were classified as at least high-risk, if not explicitly malicious, with an average of 1,767 created each day. Among these malicious domains, approximately 80 percent would distribute malware, while most of the rest were designed to phish their visitors. A few were observed to be command-and-control vectors.

Spam messages have also appeared, with coronavirus appearing in 26 percent more spam messages and 30 percent more impersonation attacks. Email campaigns have been observed with attacks appearing to come from healthcare professionals, national tax agencies, and others.

Protecting Your Business from Scams

There is no denying that things are scary right now. This fear can be a potent weapon in the hands of someone trying to pull one over on your employees, or even you.

While it may not be what you want to think about right now, the office is a lot different than working from home and can easily encourage a different mindset. The difference could easily be the security awareness your team has while going through their basic tasks, like checking their email. While working from home, they must remain cognizant of the threats that could impact business, as well as the best practices to avoid them.

These practices should include basic cybersecurity hygiene, like making sure that their passwords and other credentials are updated to be diverse and strong, as well as behavioral best practices, like carefully reviewing their email messages and checking URLs for any warning signs. Reminding them of these practices and quizzing them to determine their preparedness is also warranted.

Data Net has a lot of experience with cybersecurity, and so our team is happy to answer any questions you may have or lend a hand with your remote operations. To learn more, give us a call at (760) 466-1200.