Esri Ireland, the market leader in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), today announces that a new COVID-19 data hub, compiling official figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) and the Health Service Executive (HSE), is now publicly available to view.
The data hub is a result of a collaboration between Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi), the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the All-Island Research Observatory (AIRO) and the Department of Health, with Esri Ireland providing technical support for the hub built using its GIS technology and platform.
All figures and data on the hub are updated in line with the latest national figures. In addition to headline figures on total confirmed cases and total deaths, the hub makes large swathes of entirely new information for the public, including testing figures, ICU admissions and hospital capacity.
Furthermore, the hub presents confirmed COVID-19 case counts by electoral division, enabling detailed analysis of the location of cases and for the first time, bringing geography to the forefront in the management of the virus in Ireland. People can now view accurate and up-to-date information on COVID-19 cases in their locality.
The Irish Medtech Association, the Ibec group that represents the medtech sector, is putting a spotlight on the Irish medtech community’s critical role in helping healthcare professionals work safely and treat patients affected by COVID-19 as well as support Ireland’s reopening.
Acting Director of the Irish Medtech Association, Nessa Fennelly said “We are proud of how our sector has made an impact in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. From Cork and Galway, to Athlone and Dublin, this is a national effort. In the coming weeks, the Irish Medtech Association will be offering insights of how medtech leaders in Ireland are assisting the frontline fight against COVID-19 here, and across the world. Ireland’s medtech community has stepped-up to the challenge in the face of unprecedented need to deliver diagnostic tests, personal protective equipment, respiratory support equipment and digital health solutions to tackle COVID-19.”
Fennelly added, “This week, to start our Medtech Good News campaign, we are delighted to focus on digital health. Digital health solutions are an exciting area of innovation that are playing an increasingly important role since the start of the pandemic by offering vital insights and supporting remote care. A fantastic example of how these technologies are at the vanguard of combating COVID-19 is the ACORRD clinical support tool developed by S3 Connected Health, with the support of consultants from the Royal College of Surgeons. This medical technology helps clinicians using a web-based application on their smartphone, to track disease progression, assist in the early identification of patient deterioration, and provide timely advice to the care team.”
Commenting on the Assessment of COVID-19 Risk of Respiratory Deterioration (ACORRD) tool, President of S3 Connected Health and Chair of the Irish Medtech Digital Health Working Group, Jim O’Donoghue said “ACORRD has had a real impact in the fight against COVID-19. By building on our existing Affinial platform we managed to accelerate development and bring ACORRD from concept to deployment in just ten days after receiving a rapid response on a derogation from the Health Products Regulatory Authority. We are proud to see ACORRD already in use in major Dublin hospitals, as well in a pilot programme in Northern Ireland. We are grateful to our frontline healthcare workers for their tireless efforts to protect us from the virus, and we’re honoured to play a part.”
Phishing campaigns related to COVID-19 are becoming more targeted and difficult to identify as the pandemic progresses, a new report from privacy advocacy group ProPrivacy suggests.
The project, conducted in partnership with VirusTotal (Alphabet) and WHOIS XML, analyzed more than 600,000 domains to accurately track malicious activity throughout the pandemic. It found that the number of phishing domains being registered peaked in late March, but activity remains high with as many as 1,200 domains still being registered each day. To date, the project has identified more than 125,000 domains labeled as malicious, the vast majority of which are used for phishing activity.
The researchers noticed that as the pandemic progresses, phishing campaigns are becoming more targeted and potent, taking advantage of specific fears and concerns held by the public. For example, while there has been a marked decrease in the number of domains related to terms like ‘covid’ and ‘mask’, there has been a sharp increase in domain registrations related to unemployment, welfare benefits, and the US stimulus package.
Domain registrars have been proactive and effective in identifying generic domains related to the virus, but ProPrivacy’s research suggests that bad actors are now adopting a more nuanced approach. These focused campaigns are not only more likely to succeed, but they are becoming increasingly difficult for the threat intelligence community to identify using conventional broad stroke methods.
ProPrivacy tracked all domains registrations from January 1st, and each domain was checked against VirusTotal’s aggregated database of more than 60 threat intelligence partners. The team documented every domain labeled malicious and used a range of techniques to identify new themes that emerged throughout the pandemic.
“It would be easy to look at the overall trend and conclude that phishing activity related to the pandemic has simply fizzled out, but that’s not an accurate assessment,”
“These malicious campaigns have moved underground and are now addressing our most intimate concerns. When will my children return to school? Will I lose my job? It is these – truly human – questions that will fuel the ‘second peak’ of malicious activity. This is the next battlefront in the digital pandemic.” said Sean McGrath, lead researcher on the project.
According to a WhoisXML API researcher:
“We see a lot of niche registrations in our typosquatting data feed files. Registrants seem to target vulnerable groups. We suspect that these domains could serve as social engineering baits and trigger emotional responses.”
The study also found that GoDaddy was the most abused web host, hosting a disproportionately high number of domains used for phishing activity. The Scottsdale-based company is the largest hosting provider in the world, hosting an estimated 15 percent of all websites. However, 37 percent of the 80,470 IP addresses analyzed belonged to GoDaddy, with 3,285 resolving to the same IP address.
John Beattie, Principal Consultant at Sungard Availability Services
We live in a time of both uncertainty and unrest, with every nation facing the unknown consequences of COVID-19 which has so far impacted hundreds of millions of people and businesses. The UK has been in a state of lockdown since the end of March with nearly 9 million people placed on the government’s job-retention scheme.
The scheme, introduced in response to the economic damage caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, covers 80 percent of an employees’ usual monthly wage. Recently released official figures show the number of workers on UK payrolls dived more than 600,000 between March and May. Most UK offices remain closed and companies have been forced to adapt rapidly. This pandemic has changed the way we live and work more than any other event in peace time history.
Operational resilience has also changed forever. Businesses have begun taking careful steps to reopen the workplace and to plan for future threats, but both in the short and the long term, companies will need to reimagine their approach to resilience.
Traditionally, most disruptions posed two major threats: workplace displacement and workforce unavailability. These can be caused by hurricanes, fires, flooding, power outages or even a car through the front of the building. And yes, even pandemics. But what’s new here is the extended duration of these disruptions in light of the current pandemic. Few organizations planned for disruption to last more than a few days.
John Beattie
Data loss and third-party disruptions are the new threats due to the high dependency organizations have on both and the severe impacts if disrupted. Cyber-attacks often happen weeks or months before anyone notices, giving malware an opportunity to spread and corrupt an organisation’s backups. And as we have seen from the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chains and service networks can be severely disrupted.
Today, organisations face the potential of annual long-term lockdown cycles and reduced access to facilities, something that might never have factored into any planning for most. With such uncertainty, organisations must prepare for future events accordingly. The world is now very different, and resilience planning must adapt. A resilient culture, and agility that extends beyond working remotely, are now key for business success. Now is the time to start focusing on the future state of operational resilience. That’s why lowering concentration risk must be a top priority and that may mean diversifying a supply chain. Implementing third party risk management software provides an additional layer of security protection.
Here are four areas that business leaders should reimagine in the aftermath of COVID-19.
Executive-level focus on resilience
The current pandemic has exposed the shortcomings of many companies’ business continuity (BC), crisis management, disaster recovery (DR) and pre-covid-19 pandemic readiness plans.
So often, check-the-box plans are high level and offer no actionable detail. They include out-of-date content, aren’t sustainable for long-term disruption (as they focus on short-term disturbances) and they don’t feature pre-event preparations and work acceleration strategies.
Additionally, COVID-19 has demonstrated that resilience is too critical to fall under the jurisdiction of a single department, as there are often gaps between disciplines that are siloed from one another. Both investors and board members want to know that a company is resilient enough to withstand long-term disruption. Resilience has become a top C-suite issue.
Organisations must review their entire business resilience program and incorporate enhancements based on proven best practice and lessons learned from the pandemic. Launching a working group within an organisation to improve and integrate each of the key business resilience disciplines, will help leaders ensure a holistic approach is in place that can be called upon regardless of the situation. Disciplines should include crisis management, business continuity, disaster recovery, pandemic planning, site emergency management, risk management and vendor risk management.
Working groups should also focus on internal and external concentration risk, contingency, and disruption response planning, and prepare for future challenges that threaten the business. Concentration risk can be split into two categories. The first is an over-reliance on a single/limited number of vendors. This is a classic case of putting all your eggs in one basket. If an organisation relies heavily on a single provider for many products and services—especially critical ones—that institution might be unable to operate if something happens to that vendor. The second is geographic concentration. If both an organisation and its third-party vendors are in the same region, it’s possible that the same event could impact both parties’ operations since they all rely on the same power and telecommunications infrastructure. With resilience officials leading a multi-disciplinary team within working groups, organisations should be ready to answer any questions from executives and the board about preparedness for what comes next.
Third-party vendors’ business resilience
Cybersecurity and data protection have long been at the forefront of vendor risk assessments, but those are no longer enough. It’s time to thoroughly evaluate third-party vendors’ business resilience capabilities.
Ask questions that go beyond the presence of a plan. Organisations need to know whether there is an actionable and well understood plan in place, what is tested, and how its tested.
Be sure to touch on the “effectiveness duration” of different disruption response strategies (i.e. how long plan(s) can withstand a disruption). Business leaders need to know that suppliers have response strategies in place to overcome disturbances for 60, 90 or more days.
Organisations must evaluate concentration risk as well. Are suppliers geographically dispersed, or are they all situated in the same region? Are the facilities and workers that support the products and services they provide all located in the same area or in different regions? Having all your eggs in one basket puts organisations at a major disadvantage if any vendors experience disruptions. That’s why lowering concentration risk must be a top priority and that may mean diversifying a supply chain.
Disaster recovery (DR) effectiveness in the new normal
COVID-19 has challenged organisations to work beyond their normal workplaces, with a reduced workforce and less than satisfactory service from third-party suppliers.
But in the broader scope of business resilience, organisations must also be ready to work in the aftermath of an IT disaster or a successful cyberattack that comprised data. As such, DR programs must be ready for both recovery cases.
Upon looking closely at DR processes, many organisations are realising they aren’t aligned with their rapidly changing production environments and that their test programs aren’t effective. In many cases, they’re unprepared to undertake a real DR effort while working virtually.
To make sure a DR program is up to date and relative to the current working environment, organisations should be able to answer these questions:
Can you recover while working remotely?
Can you verify recovery effectiveness in complex hybrid compute environments?
Have you addressed concentration risk within IT from a people and data center perspective?
It’s also important to maintain a regular testing schedule. Doing so will help to close any resilience perception gaps and allow companies to iron out any issues before a disaster arises.
Readiness for a future pandemic
Many companies were caught flat-footed when the pandemic hit. The only way to prevent a repeat of that is to start planning now for the next outbreak.
Organisations need to develop a pandemic readiness plan to monitor and manage significant potential and realised health threats. This should include proactive and reactive actions to prevent or reduce the transmission of a health threat to personnel, contingent workers and visitors.
Response strategies for various scenarios in which business dynamics change will be crucial, as will internal and external communication protocols for general information updates and urgent announcements. By developing a pandemic management plan, organisations can address the entire lifecycle of an infectious disease outbreak – monitoring, preparing, responding and recovering from it.
Consistent adaptation
Regardless of COVID-19’s long term impact, the future of an organisation’s operational resilience is in its own hands. By addressing these four areas, businesses will be more agile and better equipped to clear any hurdles down the road.
By employing the right combination of business continuity tools, adapting to changes in the current situation, and sharing the burden of knowledge relating to best practices for limiting the spread of infection, business leaders can ensure overall resilience and availability of products, services and operations.
Business leaders should review their existing business continuity strategy on a daily basis, proactively monitor the news for recent developments, check government advice regularly, and react in a timely manner.
Recent events have driven unprecedented levels of creativity and agility within the marketing sector, with brand communications teams and agency creatives pivoting rapidly to deliver transformational digital campaigns to address an entirely new set of consumer needs.
As such, CRU (The Commission for Regulation of Utilities) has launched the first ever Google Home and Alexa centred AI campaign in Ireland, aligned to the roll out of its ‘Switch On to Savings, Rights and Safety’ communications campaign.
This unique digital activation involves the development of an app which effectively ‘trains’ smart home devices, namely Google Home and Alexa, to deliver specific responses to any consumer questions on the theme of savings, switching energy suppliers, energy safety and rights, whilst also driving awareness of the role of CRU, its services and guiding consumers to CRU branded information portals such as the CRU website and social media channels.
This ‘smart home conversation skill’ activation is the first of its kind to be developed and rolled out in Ireland by any organisation and was developed by the CRU in close collaboration with PR agency AMPLIFY@Drury Porter Novelli and Granite Digital.
The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities ‘Switch On’ campaign calls on the public to switch on to their rights, safety and savings as an energy consumer, and is fronted by long standing Campaign Ambassador Maia Dunphy. As part of a broader communications campaign, Maia will work closely with several high-profile Irish influencers to engage in an online challenge to see how much money they can save, by following the simple steps suggested by CRU. Over the coming weeks the influencer collaboration campaign will see participants using their smart home devices to put the CRU app to the test, when comparing costs from different Irish energy providers. The influencer campaign will roll out across Instagram, but will be amplified across all channels.
The way people are connecting with businesses through technology is constantly evolving. Surveys from 2019, found that 15% of Irish households now have smart speakers, while over 50% of Irish people are expected to own a smart speaker by 2023. In further research, ComScore forecasts that over half of all search will be via voice by 2020, showing that voice is poised to become the next big channel for marketers.
With the disruptive effects of the pandemic currently dominating our daily lives CRU was forced to pivot its ‘Switch On’ campaign online. CRU Head of Communications and Public Affairs, Karl Richardson said “The current COVID-19 pandemic has forced many businesses to stop in their tracks, quickly re-strategise, and change the ways in which they operate. Given how consumer behaviours to switching suppliers have been impacted due to Coivd, we are delighted to be the first to introduce this innovative AI technology and reach Irish consumers in a way that compliments their busy on and offline lifestyles and provide them with the information they need to switch on to savings, their right and safety.”
As Ireland’s independent energy and water regulator, the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) is central in protecting Irish consumers’ energy savings, rights and safety, and wanted to scale the advice previously provided by its consultants.
Launching this latest digital activation, Nicky Crichton, Brand Communications Lead at AMPLIFY@DruryPN said “Like many brand communications agencies, we’re pushing boundaries and pivoting fast to ensure effective, impactful, digitally led solutions for our clients, and the campaign for CRU is one that we’re particularly excited about given that its first to market, and perfectly timed given the ever increasing use of in-home AI technology”
Ivan Adriel, Creative Strategy Director of Granite added“AI assistants are rapidly taking over consumers’ homes, soon to become the primary channel through which people get information, goods, and services. We were delighted to co-create this solution for CRU, anticipating the future and exploring a striking new opportunity for connection between brand & consumers.”
Switch On To CRU is now available on all Google Home and Amazon Alexa devices in Ireland. To start a conversation simply use the prompts below:
With the introduction of the COVID-19 lockdown seeing nearly all aspects of our lives migrating to our home, our dependence on digital connectivity has never been more prevalent. Thankfully, there has been no shortage of apps that can help us through this strange time – from keeping in contact with family and friends to connecting with colleagues and customers.
New research from Carphone Warehouse used a social media listening tool to discover which apps are helping us to cope with the lockdown. From learning a new hobby, keeping connected or sharing your own lockdown experience on social media, many of us are using apps to keep us going:
Houseparty
A relatively new app that has made a name for itself during lockdown, Houseparty has increased in popularity since social distancing has become the new norm. It allows you to make video calls with friends and family while challenging them to a variety of different games. Recent research has revealed that the app is most popular at 10pm on Wednesdays, proving it to be the go-to for a mid-week gathering.
Zoom
Another video-based app, Zoom is perfect for both professional and social calls. It is used for business meetings and webinars and can accommodate up to 10,000 viewers through its presentation feature. On the social side, it is also great for hosting virtual pub quizzes or birthday parties. You can also jazz up a Monday morning meeting or Friday night drinks with a variety of fun backgrounds.
Headspace
With radical changes to our lifestyles, many of us have had to wave goodbye to well-honed routines – and this can be stressful and mentally draining. Mental health app Headspace focuses on mental wellbeing and relaxation, while providing access to resources such as anxiety-reducing meditation and sleep exercises that help keep users’ mental health in tip top shape.
Disney+
Wondering what to do with all this extra time on your hands? You can binge all your favourite Disney movies and programmes, from princesses to Jedis and everything in between. In fact, the new movie streaming service has proven a threat to streaming giant Netflix, as millions of users have signed up after its launch in the US, Canada, UK and the majority of Europe.
Stand Up!
Working from home is the reality for many of us, and being cooped up at home can make it difficult to find the motivation to keep active. It can be easy to slip into sedentary behaviour, but sitting for too long can come with some serious health risks. Stand Up! is an app that prompts you to stand up and move around every so often so you can stretch and get those muscles moving.
Duolingo
Many people are using self-isolation as an opportunity get a new language under their belt – and Duolingo has been popular for this. It makes learning French, Greek or even High Valyrian easy and fun with games and tests against the clock. Why not fulfil your wanderlust by attempting to grasp the language of a country you’d love to travel to once this is all said and done?
MasterClass
If a language doesn’t interest you, you can get to grips with a new skill instead. MasterClass offers the help of a leading professional in their field so you can come out of lockdown with a new hobby. Whether it’s cooking classes with Gordon Ramsay or tennis lessons with Serena Williams, it’s as close as you can get to a private lesson with these professionals.
In today’s digital landscape, there are a plethora of apps that you can use to help keep you entertained and connected during this time at home.
Southern Health & Social Care Trust (SHSCT) is working with Civica, a global leader in software for public services, to provide its employees with the new SHSCT Connect App. The app will play a vital role in keeping the Trust’s employees informed of the latest updates during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing a central hub for information and issuing alerts.
SHSCT provides health and social care services across five council areas in Northern Ireland, and employs more than 13,000 people.
As an established partner Civica has been working with the SHSCT to support delivery of care using its patient administration and document management systems. Following Civica’s collaboration with the Northern Ireland Department of Health to develop the COVID-19 NI mobile app, the Trust commissioned Civica to help build an app to ensure vital information is shared with all its staff, including those with no access to corporate systems such as contract and agency staff. The app is a vital source of information, guidance and engagement for employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The app provides the Trust with direct control over all content using a flexible content management system, providing complete autonomy. It was developed in four weeks following a virtual design workshop with Civica, SHSCT and UX design company, Big Motive, as just one innovation within the Civica North Star lab.
This is a first for the Trust and will give all employees access to the content they need on a day-to-day basis, as well as provide a central hub for podcasts and newsletters. Chatbot functionality enables employees to ask questions and get a response at any time of day or night. It then provides a daily breakdown of questions being asked so the Trust’s communications team can refine the content and resources within the app accordingly. In addition, the Trust can send out push notifications for important announcements, such as notifying employees of a new PPE delivery.
Vivienne Toal, Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development at Southern Health & Social Care Trust said: “Together with Civica and Big Motive, we have been working extremely hard over the past month to find a way to ensure all our employees, including those who do not have easy access to a computer, can access information regarding news, benefits and health and wellbeing on a regular basis.
“Engaging with and listening to our staff is fundamental to helping us create a great place to work. One of the key areas we identified for improvement following our 2019 staff survey was communication and engagement, so we are thrilled that this app will enable us to connect and engage with everyone across the organisation quickly and effectively. This roll-out is just the first phase and we are very excited about how the app will develop over time.”
Steve Brain, Executive Director, Health and Care, Civica added: “Technology and software are key enablers to improving communications and driving efficiencies across the NHS. The SHSCT Connect App will allow the Southern Health & Social Care Trust to share focused, easily consumed content with its 13,000 employees, ensuring they are always kept up-to-date. We are delighted to be supporting the Trust with its digital transformation strategy at this crucial time and improving its employees’ engagement and wellbeing at work.”
While COVID-19 drove the creation of the app, it has also been designed as part of the Trust’s wider digital transformation plan and will continue to function as a key HR and Communications platform post-pandemic. The Trust is also looking at using the app to provide online and virtual training as well as clinical guidance for medical workers in the future.
A tech duo from Waterford have launched a GPS-based app that will allow pubs, restaurants, gyms and other social and recreational outlets to open and do business in the new COVID-era.
The innovative technology, which is the first of its kind in the Irish marketplace, allows business owners to easily document and broadcast their venues’ compliance standards and the availability of space on their premises, to their customer base. This in turn equips patrons with the knowledge they need to make informed, real-time decisions around where they can go to socialise safely.
In its first week, 200 businesses signed up to arrange a demo of the software, and it is expected that take up of Ordee is likely to soar in the coming months, as Ireland gears up for a phased reopening.
Speaking of the new product, Ordee Co-founder Anthony Cronin,
“Publicans, restaurateurs and so many other business owners throughout the country are chomping at the bit to get back to work, but they are struggling to see how they can maintain compliance standards and still operate their business, while keeping costs down. With Ordee we have basically taken these key obstacles that businesses are facing, developed solutions to address them, and centralised the solutions in one easy to use app. It’s critical that venues can re-engage with their customer base – and Ordee will allow them to do this efficiently, cost effectively and safely”.
Mr. Cronin went on to outline how the app also addresses concerns from a consumer perspective,
“When the time comes, people will be itching to get out and socialise again – but there is a consistent air of concern amongst the public as to how they can do this safely. People are cognisant of the fact that they don’t want their behaviour, or the behaviour of others, to put themselves or others in jeopardy. The Ordee app is designed to go some way to alleviating these concerns”.
“Ordee” allows publicans, restauranteurs and other service providers and retailers to put their energy into their core business, while ensuring that their venue is compliant with “Return to Work Safely Guidelines”.
So How Does Ordee Work?
The business signs up to the program and is then listed as a venue on the app and shown on the live map to users. Businesses can segregate online bookings for space and for walk-ins
The user downloads the app and can check a list of venues in real time to see which venues currently have available space. They can book based on availability and join a queue
Once the user chooses a venue and arrives at the location, they receive a notification to confirm they are there and how many people are in their party, in which case the app will update the venue’s status accordingly. If the patron him/herself does not have the app on their person, then the venue itself can “clock a person/ persons in” manually through the admin section of the programme
The user can also use the app to order and pay for drinks, food etc.
Financial Support
Developers at Ordee say that because the app is deemed an ecommerce solution, businesses that want to sign up might be able to avail of the LEO Trading Online Voucher to do so – provided they meet the criteria.
Mr. Cronin commented,
“Cashflow is tight, to say the least, for most businesses at the moment and compliance with COVID-protocols is going to incur additional costs. To offset these, the Government have put in place supports – one of which is the Local Enterprise Trading Online grant and businesses can use it to sign up for Ordee. If your application is accepted, LEO will fund 90% of the cost of the Platform for your business. There are a few T&C’s but the process is very simple and effective”.
Since launching last week, there have been almost 200 businesses nationwide that have requested demonstrations.
Mr. Cronin concluded,
“Interest has been huge. Even more than we envisaged. Our team are working round the clock to ensure that we get to everyone who has requested a demo as quickly as possible”.
In the wake of the developing COVID-19 pandemic, organizations around the world have adopted social distancing practices to slow the spread of the disease, including instructing many employees to work from home. But no one could have foreseen the need for businesses, government agencies, and other organizations around the world to quickly transition the majority of their workforces to remote work.
The fast transition, the sheer number of people now working from home, and the already-devastating economic effects of the pandemic are among the factors that make this time an especially perilous one for enterprise security. IT security teams are struggling to keep up with increased threat levels from COVID-19-related malware and other cyber threats. Newly remote workers are leaving their companies’ networks vulnerable to hackers, and COVID-19-related cyber scams are on the rise as hackers seek to cash in on the crisis. Here’s what you need to know to keep your company safe.
Educate Employees About COVID-19 Cybersecurity
If your organization hasn’t already been giving employees regular cybersecurity training, then you need more help than this article can give. If you have been giving employees regular cybersecurity training, now is not the time to slack off. You should be aware that COVID-19-related cyber scams are proliferating at a mind-boggling pace. By mid-March, Computer Weekly was already calling COVID-19 the biggest cyber-threat in history, due to the massive volume of related malware and scam emails already circulating by that time. By mid-April, Google reported blocking 18 million COVID-19-related scam emails a day.
Cyber criminals love to play on the emotions of their victims to cash in, because users in the grip of a strong emotion, like fear of a deadly disease, often aren’t thinking straight. They’ll click on links or download attachments that they might otherwise have ignored. And many people around the world, having lost their jobs or been physically restricted to their homes or neighborhoods, are looking for a way to make a living, so the ranks of cyber criminals may be swelling, too.
That’s why it’s so important to educate employees about the cybersecurity risks associated with COVID-19. Regular security training will keep employees vigilant against suspicious emails that might land in their inboxes. Make sure to send out regular memos warning employees of common COVID-19 related malware and phishing scams as they emerge. Your employees may not be targeted by specific scams, but knowing what kinds of things to look out for can help them protect the enterprise network.
Of course, you’ll also need a security solution that can detect vulnerabilities and threats and work to neutralize them. Your employees will be reporting suspicious emails, perhaps in greater numbers than ever before, and your IT security team will be facing more threats than it probably ever has in the past. Make sure you have a comprehensive enterprise network security solution to help your team meet these new challenges.
Require a VPN and Regular Security Check-Ins
Your employees’ home networks won’t be as secure as your enterprise network, because it’s unlikely that employees have intrusion detection or protection on their home networks. That’s why you should require employees to connect to the company’s network through a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN can hide your employees’ activities on your network, and help protect your information from thieves.
You should also set network security standards for employees working from home. Put together a security protocol that includes securing devices physically, keeping work and personal emails separate, and locking down their home networks. Implement regular security check-ins with staff to make sure they’re using multi-factor authentication to log into enterprise systems and work email accounts, and to verify that they’re implementing the enterprise security protocols for their home networks.
Give Employees Company Devices to Work from Home
It might be tempting to allow employees to work from home on their personal devices — it would save your organization a lot of money on laptops. But you don’t know what employees are doing on their personal devices when they’re not on the clock, what antivirus and antimalware protection they’re using, or how tight their security is. It’s easier to protect your enterprise network when you issue company devices to employees who are working from home. It’s also easier to keep an eye on those employees to make sure they really are working when they’re supposed to be. When you issue company devices, you’ll be able to synchronize the same endpoint solution across each one, to remove some of the vulnerabilities that can come with a rapid distribution of teams.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a lot of uncertainty with it, especially when it comes to keeping your enterprise network secure. Don’t let the challenges of this pandemic leave you vulnerable to cyber criminals. Protect your network, so you and your employees can weather the storm.
