Intelligent CISO Issue 32 | Page 41

EXPERT OPINION

Cybersecurity in the COVID era : Guarding against phishing

While employees have , in the main , adapted to working from home , the rapid move to a remote workforce as a result of Coronavirus has left many organisations highly susceptible to cyberattacks . Andrew Morris , Managing Consultant at Turnkey Consulting , explains how companies can protect themselves against phishing .
Andrew Morris , Managing Consultant at Turnkey Consulting ne of the

O most common cyberthreats is phishing , a form of social engineering whereby criminals manipulate individuals into performing actions before they have a chance to stop and think critically and rationally about the emails .

Typically , phishing attempts to obtain an individual ’ s username and passwords so the attacker can log on as that ( legitimate ) person to steal data or money , or cause disruption to the business .
These attacks can also be used to install malicious software on computers and mobile devices in order to cripple them , to ransom the organisation into handing over money or to use them to cause further damage .
With most employees working remotely , the number of phishing attacks against organisations has increased . People are naturally anxious and they are not in their normal working environment . It could be assumed that this would lead to them being more on their guard for such attempts but experience shows quite the reverse , meaning they are more likely to become a victim of social engineering attacks .
Communications that appear to come from the organisation they work for are far more likely to be believed if the employee is not in the office ( when they would be able to verify it ) or are distracted by events happening at home . With business processes such as payroll ( only ever intended to be run from the office ) being executed remotely , the controls that ensure nothing untoward is taking place are stretched . And as attention is more likely to be focused on the execution of business critical events , it is easy for some of the smaller controls or processes to run without any monitoring until long after the damage has been done .
False identities
Criminals are taking advantage of this anxiety and distraction . This has seen an increase in Business Email Compromise attacks , whereby a criminal poses as a senior manager in the organisation and asks an employee to transfer funds to a ( typically ) untraceable account . The transfer is implied to be critical and the employee is asked to keep it a secret due to relating to a sensitive nature such as a merger or acquisition . Current scenarios used by criminals include transferring money to ‘ virus relief funds ’ or to help colleagues who have been made redundant . www . intelligentciso . com
41