Improving cyber-security during the Pandemic

The biggest change that the coronavirus crisis has brought is that a considerable amount of people are now working from home. In most companies, a majority of employees have made this switch. This has led to employees using different devices to perform tasks, and as these are not always a part of the company network, they can directly hamper its security. With the number of cyber-attacks on the rise during the pandemic, it is imperative for you to come up with solutions to avoid the same.

Your existing defence systems like firewalls, DNS security software and intrusion prevention structures may all end up being ineffective with the traffic of new devices. If you use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) for your system, you will have to ensure that the infrastructure can manage a high number of desktop sessions coming from remote sources. However, even if you manage to do that, it might not be as secure as you want to be.

To make the practice of work-from-home as secure as possible, it is incredibly important for you to take the right steps by putting your system through rigorous penetration and security test cases performed by professional testers. This is the only way to avoid the risk of data breaches, cyber-attacks and interruptions in the working of the system.

Here are a few ways you can improve cyber-security during the pandemic.

Monitor and review all the devices in your company network

Monitoring and reviewing all the devices connected to your company network is the most important thing to keep in mind to curb the possibility of a cyber-attack during this time. The idea is here to audit each and every single device that is a part of your company’s network. While some remote employees might be using laptops or desktops that have been configured correctly in accordance with your network, the same cannot be said for devices used by every employee. Many of them will be using their personal devices and therefore, it is important to monitor them so that no malware creeps in your network through these devices.

For this, you should check whether every employee is using a secure Wi-Fi connection and whether they are using only the sanctioned devices to operate in your VPN. You need to hire testers to review the software patching practices that can be seen across all the devices. Furthermore, they can also help in adding security controls to the personal devices used by your employees so as to secure your company network.

Track the new threats as and when they emerge

Cyber-attacks around the world have been on a rise in the last 4-5 months as hackers have been attacking both individuals and organisations. The impact of this growing wave of cyber-attacks can be seen in the responses by top companies across the world. They are now increasing their budgets to improve cyber-security. A number of market researches and surveys have predicted an exponential rise in cyber-attacks in the near future. As a result, you will have to be on your toes and track the new threats to your system as and when they occur.

For example, a page that shows the overall map of the spread of the coronavirus pandemic had malware in it, which hacks into the system to derive data. With coronavirus being one of the most talked about topics in the world, people end up falling into this trap pretty easily. This is where you need professional penetration and security testers working for your company’s network to make it secure with the most advanced firewalls to prevent such malicious intrusion.

The employees themselves too should not succumb to such threats. As an employer, you should arrange a basic training workshop on how to avoid such situations while using a computer system connected to a company network.

Provide secure tools to your employees

With employees working from remote areas, it has become extremely important to make sure that all communication and collaboration is conducted through secure means. When employees do not have the right tools to communicate, it is the duty of the employer to provide the necessary tools to them. However, the devices you provide should be secure and be a part of your company network. Also, you can build a new software that lets your employees connect to each other via a secure network, be it for video calls or chats. Once created, make sure that the software passes all the cyber-security tests.

With cyber criminals unleashing waves after waves of cyber-attacks, one cannot avoid integrating new security measures into work networks. To safeguard your company network in these testing times, you must seek services from professional quality assurance experts and software testers. To get the best services at affordable prices, get in touch with TestUnity, a company that has experienced testers at their disposal.

TestUnity

Testunity is a SaaS-based technology platform driven by a vast community of testers & QAs spread around the world, powered by technology & testing experts to create the dedicated testing hub. Which is capable of providing almost all kind of testing services for almost all the platforms exists in software word.