Cyber attacks feared to spike amid work-from-home mode

CEBU, Philippines — As most companies adopt a work-from-home scheme to limit the movement of their employees amid the coronavirus disease outbreak, a cybersecurity firm sends out a warning to employers to brace for a possible heightened cyber threat.

Stephan Neumeier, managing director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky said that employing sophisticated cybersecurity measures to protect delicate information while some executives and company workers are doing their job off-site.

“While medical experts are rushing to find a cure against the novel coronavirus, it is clear that cybercriminals are equally busy trying new techniques and tactics to milk money from organizations and individuals by exploiting the public panic on this current pandemic,” warned Neumeier.

In Asia Pacific, detection is just the tip of the iceberg, he said. “We urge everyone to keep calm but be very cautious at the same time.”

So far, Kaspersky has detected 93 coronavirus related malware in Asia Pacific. These are in Bangladesh, 53 in the Philippines, 40 in China, 23 in Vietnam, 22 in India and 20 in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, single-digit detections were monitored in Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Myanmar and Thailand.

Companies therefore and encouraged to be more vigilant at this time, especially those employees who are bringing their office works remotely at their homes.

“Employees who are working at home [should] exercise caution,” reminded David Emm, principal security researcher at Kaspersky.

Businesses are also told to communicate clearly with workers to ensure they are aware of the risks, and do everything they can to secure remote access for those self-isolating or working from home, added Emm.

“It is a known fact that once devices are taken outside of a company’s network infrastructure, and is connected to new networks and Wifi, the risks to corporate information increase. It is high time that we boost not only our physical immunity but also our networks’ security against these damaging attacks,” Neumeier further warned.