Cybersecurity

Why were cyberattacks higher than usual during COVID-19?

With the pandemic and the whole world going completely remote, the pandemic has made cyberattacks higher than usual. I personally believe hackers know that it is easier to break into employees’ personal networks than hacking into the companies’ networks. According to Cedric Nabe in his article Impact of COVID-19 on Cybersecurity, he discussed how there have been over 350 cyberattacks in April 2020 in Switzerland. The normal amount of cyberattacks are about 100 to 150. April 2020 was the start of some nation remote and stay at home protocols.

Cyberattacks during the pandemic have become a big challenge for companies, the challenges start with their employees working from home. When employees all over the world and the nation were told that they had to be remote, that meant their work had to go home with them. This meant that the work and the company’s data was at a very vulnerable place, so the vulnerability is due to the employees’ safety of their network, passwords, and using their personal devices for work related things.

What were the most common cyberattacks during COVID-19?

There has been several different cyberattacks, but according to the article INTERPOL report shows an alarming rate of cyberattacks during COVID-19 there are four different cyberattacks that were at a high during the pandemics; these cyberattacks are 1. Online scams and phishing with 59% of cyberthreats, 2. Malware/Ransomware with 36% of cyberthreats, 3. Malicious domain with 22% of cyberthreats, and 4. Fake news with 14% of cyberthreats. Online scams and phishing are cyberthreats that are usually sent by emails to people that are fake. The goals of these emails would be to trick people to provide the cybercriminals with their personal and private information, things like social security number, banking information, etc. During COVID-19 these cybercriminals started to use the government and COVID-19 to their advantage like sending fake emails about COVID-19 and emails from the IRS or other government related things. The other cybercriminals would also use COVID-19 to steal data and information with the other cyberthreats. These cybercriminals were attacking everyone in the community.

What were my experiences?

I have experienced a cyberattack before with my social media, someone has hacked into one of my social media accounts, and the social media platform wasn’t the best with helping with those types of situations. After this experience, I made sure all my personal information was more secure than before. This cyberattack happened during April 2020, which was when everything went remote. This cyberattack made me make sure everything was secure and that I wasn’t providing too much of my information.

Now, I have personally noticed an increase in phishing emails or just spam emails on both my school account and my personal, my school email is more secure than my personal email but they're both on different platforms. My school use google email and I have used an google email for my internship. What I have noticed from google is that they have a way to report phishing emails which is a nice feature to have. Also, my school and the company that I worked for this summer provide information on how to tell if email is phishing email or if not. Now, on my personal email they don’t provide a way to report a phishing email like google so I used my computer science skills to try figure out the things that look odd and compare the email with previous email that I have received before from the company, I would also use google to look up the company’s actual emails.

Overall, we really need to be careful to protect our personal information, I have received a lot of phishing emails from the IRS and the IRS does not have an email address. I have also received fake emails from PayPal as well, and the list goes on. These hackers and scammers want your information to be able to make money or take your money. When they hack companies, they want the companies’ data to be able to sell or use it that data for their own benefits as well. Cybersecurity will be an ongoing battle between the people and software that protects us from the cybercriminals.

How to protect yourself and your companies from cyberattacks?

I have spoken about cybersecurity, cyberthreats, and how the cybercriminals were using this vulnerable time to attack our community. Being a victim of a cyberattack is horrible and frustrating, I assume those who battle against these attacks and threats are having a troubling time as well. Here are some ways we as a community can protect ourselves from cyberattacks:

● Being informative- I believe this is a very important thing to share with others and especially your employees. With the different generations some people don’t know what a scam email or phishing email is or look like. Sharing how to tell the difference of a real versus a fake email can decrease the number of attacks. This can also help with misleading websites. We can help and provide information about how to tell the difference between real information and misleading information.

● Being more protective-

o Providing information about how strong your password should be. Something that is very smart to do is not use the same password for multiple accounts and not to use personal information. I know of some software that helps you change your passwords if used multiple times, but I think the safer way is to write it in a book. Also, you can now multi-factor authentication for most websites.

o Using a VPN- VPNs are very protective. A VPN can protect your network when you're using public Wi-Fi. They also can help companies protect the remote employee’s work with having employees connecting with the company’s network remotely.

o Don’t use personal devices as your work computer- I know most companies provide their remote employees with a company’s computer just because they know that the data that employees are working with needs to be protected. Using your personal devices for work decreases that protection.

Works Cited

“Interpol Report Shows Alarming Rate of Cyberattacks during COVID-19.” INTERPOL, https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2020/INTERPOL-report-shows-alarming-rate-of-cyberattacks-during-COVID-19.

Irwin, Luke. “The Cyber Security Risks of Working from Home - IT Governance Blog.” IT Governance UK Blog, 25 Feb. 2022, https://www.itgovernance.co.uk/blog/the-cyber-security-risks-of-working-from-home.

Cedric Nabe. “Impact of Covid-19 on Cybersecurity.” Deloitte Switzerland, 15 Dec. 2020, https://www2.deloitte.com/ch/en/pages/risk/articles/impact-covid-cybersecurity.html.

Annemarie Mannion “10 Ways Companies Can Protect against Cyber Attacks When Employees Are Working at Home.” Risk & Insurance, 5 Nov. 2021, https://riskandinsurance.com/10-ways-companies-can-protect-against-cyber-attacks-when-employees-are-working-at-home/.