The COVID-19 pandemic has affected our lives in many ways. Restaurants are empty, grocery stores are full of people wearing masks, students are getting their lectures online, and businesses are working from home. One thing has remained constant; cyber hackers are going to try to access material that you want to keep private.
It is hard to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has produced any substantial benefit; it has crippled businesses, left many individuals without work, and taken loved ones from families. However, if there is any positive outcome that has come from it, it is that it has shown businesses that working from home is a viable option that they otherwise may not have considered; employee productivity is still high or, at worst, not as low as they may have expected. Further, it can be expected that employee satisfaction is at a much higher level as workers do not have to deal with their morning commute, fighting traffic or public transportation, and can work in the comfort of their own home. It is possible to imagine that working from home will be the new normal.
The Most Important Disadvantage to Working from Home
While working from home has many advantages, there are certain things that each individual and businesses alike should know. One of the most important disadvantages is that it is unlikely that employees will be accessing a secured network. Further, an individual may be accessing their work computer from home and moving those documents to their own personal computer and removing it from the network. With more and more people accessing files and working from home, there will likely be an increase in cyber-attacks.
COVID-19 did not change cyber-risk, it amplified it; more people accessing private information from unsecured networks increases the exposure to cyber-risk. These new working environments were created almost instantly, and companies did not have any time to properly prepare security.
What Industries will be affected by Increased Cyber Risk?
The areas that we will most likely see affected are medicine, legal, and accounting; fields that deal with very personal information from all of their clients, such as medical records, bank accounts, credit card information, and social security numbers. It is up to the individuals that work at these businesses to maintain the confidentiality of their client’s information. It is on the businesses to ensure that their employees are not removing documents from secured networks and moving them into unsecured personal networks.
What do we do to protect our networks?
One solution is to protect your business with cyber-security insurance. This type of insurance protects businesses, customers, and employee data against fraud, extortion, and lawsuits. Many businesses have this type of insurance already but would greatly benefit from reaching out to their insurance provider to ensure that they are covered given the vastly different circumstances under which many individuals are currently working.
Ultimately, the most important way to protect our networks and protect client information is by staying informed. Individuals must be informed and be aware when they are potentially accessing data from a secured network. Companies and business owners must make sure to inform their employees of the nature and increased risk of cyber-attacks. The first step is to make sure everybody is aware and knowledgeable of the increased risk; only then can we start to move to the next measures of cyber-security. A plan or steps to ensure security is recommended for all businesses that intend for their employees to work remotely.
Denis M. Egidio is a second-year law student at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Denis now lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his fiancée and two greyhounds.