Page 60 - Institute Quaterly 5 Final

Cyber Updates

Cybersecurity Awareness

Month - October 2020

Now in its 17th year, Cybersecurity Awareness Month continues to “Mitigating these types of risks calls for several tactics. Given the
play a critical role in raising awareness of the online threats faced by increasing sophistication of the technology behind this kind of
both organisations and individuals alike. This year’s theme - ‘Think disinformation, it is fundamental that individuals now realise the
Before U Click’ (#ThinkB4UClick) focused on the importance of power of social engineering and the influencing effect that deceptive
personal accountability: whether we’re checking personal emails or tactics can have on them. It is critical to continually educate people
accessing the company server, diligence must always be exercised to and raise awareness on these issues.”
avoid inadvertently opening the door to hackers.
Managing cyber risk with a distributed
This year, attackers have doubled down on social engineering (i.e. workforce
phishing) to exploit the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic For businesses, resilience and continuity strategies have had to
and take advantage of the subsequent spike in the use of online adapt to distributed working in order to effectively manage the
services. In April, for example, one survey found a 667% increase in security challenges of the ‘new normal’. Chris Hodson, CISO, Tanium,
malicious phishing emails during the pandemic, sent by scammers describes how many of the issues that emerged at the start of
impersonating the UK government, the WHO, and the Centre for lockdown resulted from considerably overestimating preparedness
Disease Control and Prevention. for the security challenges that came with shifting to a distributed
working environment.
In this article, industry experts from a range of technology disciplines “Our research found that 85% of business leaders thought they were
discuss some of the biggest threats that individuals, organisations prepared to manage the shift to widespread WFH. This confidence
and even entire nations face today in the cybersphere. In a rapidly turned out to be ill-founded with 98% admitting they faced security
changing world, these perspectives help us to understand not only challenges in the transition away from the office.”
the consequences of inadequate cybersecurity measures, but the
ingredients of effective cyber resilience in 2020 and beyond. “Not only did widespread remote working exacerbate existing
issues,” Hodson continues, “it also created a host of new security
Combatting disinformation and cyber propaganda challenges, allowing cybercriminals to run amok during a period of
With in-person contact having taken a hit this year, for many, a deep confusion and uncertainty for businesses. Whether companies
significant proportion of daily life has now moved online. Accordingly, choose to permanently move their operations, return employees to
self-protection has had to adapt. “With cyberculture increasingly the office, or some combination of both, implementing tools such as
embedded into people’s lives, cybercrime is now just an inevitable endpoint management and efficient security solutions should be a
part of everyday life” argues Keiron Shepherd, Principal Solutions priority.”
Engineer at F5. Accordingly, “data is a valuable currency that needs to
be protected.” The new cybersecurity imperative
As connectivity continues to become a crucial element in more of
“As such, cybercriminals are becoming very adept at misleading society’s infrastructure, cyber-attacks are having more devastating
voters with disinformation. This includes propagating false news, consequences. As, Dave Palmer, Director of Technology, Darktrace,
using bots to drive social media engagement and the strategic leaks explains, “Just last week, news of a woman dying after ransomware
of incriminating emails or confidential documents. Mainstream hit a German hospital hit the headlines. Last month the NCSC warned
awareness of these issues is growing. However, the fact remains that of attacks against the academic sector following a spate of hacks on
people spend a significant amount of time online and it is getting UK schools, colleges and universities. Earlier this year, we learned of
increasingly difficult to understand what is real and what is a bot- nation states hacking vaccine research.”
generated media post.