Bloomberg reports cybersecurity teams are confronting the “challenge of securing sprawling, vulnerable networks as companies and government agencies send their employees home to avoid contact with the coronavirus,” The specific security challenges “are wide ranging.” While those using company-provided laptops “are likely protected by internal safety measures, they could still be vulnerable if their security software isn’t updated or their remote network connection isn’t perfectly configured.” The bigger problem is” employees using their own equipment that security teams can’t monitor for malicious traffic.” The challenge can “overwhelm security personnel, especially for those companies that have previously discouraged employees from working from home.” Allan Liska, senior security architect at cybersecurity analytics firm Recorded Future, said, “What we’re seeing is a help desk or an IT department that wasn’t really responsible for setting up a mass network of remote users until a week ago.”
Move to remote work poses threats to trade secrets. Reuters reports lawyers “said companies are directing employees to work from home in unprecedented numbers amid the coronavirus outbreak, presenting a host of cybersecurity issues and making it more difficult to protect trade secrets.” As workers increasingly “move out of the office, they are bringing client lists, development plans, and financial data along with them, greatly increasing the risk that information could fall into the wrong hands.” At the same time, Steven Ragland, a partner at Keker Van Nest & Peters in San Francisco “said the at least partial closure of many courts around the country means that if trade secrets are stolen or leaked out, companies may not be able to turn to courts to prevent them from immediately being access or used.” As workers “increasingly move out of the office, they are bringing client lists, development plans, and financial data along with them, greatly increasing the risk that information could fall into the wrong hands.”
Coronavirus sets the stage for hacking mayhem. Wired reports “in addition to the pressing threat” novel coronavirus “poses to human health,” the rapid changes it has effected “have also created an environment in which hackers, scammers, and spammers all thrive.” Coronavirus phishing scams and increased working from home are among the changes described.
From the news release of the American Association for Justice.
