Caught by the sudden onslaught of COVID-19, most businesses lack or have inadequate security systems in place to support remote work and now have to deal with a new reality that includes a much wider attack surface and less secured user devices. Many also have had to adapt and adopt digital tools quickly, taking on new technology that may not be adequately secured.
Already, 21% of organisations in Singapore revealed they had seen an increase in attacks on their IT systems due to the pandemic, according to a HackerOne report released this week. Some 58% of these businesses believed they were more likely to encounter a data breach as a result of the global pandemic, found the survey, which polled 200 respondents in the city-state. Conducted by Opinion Matters in July 2020, the HackerOne study polled 1,400 security professionals in Singapore, Australia, France, Germany, Canada, the UK, and the US.
Across the board, 64% felt it was likely their organisation would experience a data breach as a result of the pandemic. HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos said: "The COVID-19 crisis has shifted life online. As companies rush to meet remote work requirements and customer demands for digital services, attack surfaces have dramatically expanded, leaving security teams stretched thin and not staffed to cope."
With more employees working from home, it has become easier to launch attacks at enterprises, warned Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky, who was speaking at Kaspersky's Asia-Pacific Online Policy Forum last week.
By Eileen Yufor By The Way on ZDNet