Articles about COVID-19

COVID-19 threw the spotlight on cybersecurity like never before. The unprecedented global shift to remote working and subsequent surge in cyber crime, drove a priority focus amongst business leaders to ensure a robust cybersecurity posture across every part of their newly extended network. Many organizations had to make this transition rapidly, which increased the likelihood of misconfigurations and other errors, while the drastically increased attack surface presented fresh cybersecurity challenges around remote network connections, VPN connections, phishing, and many other types of network attacks.

Ensuring adequate protection against this wave of new security threats facing every size and shape of business became paramount and challenged CISOs to balance reduced budgets and staff against the requirement for increased technology investment.

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IT security teams have faced a range of challenges in the last year thanks to dramatically expanded work-from-home programs, increased BYOD use, and rising internal and third-party risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The latest Cyberthreat Defense Report from CyberEdge shows 86 percent of organizations experienced a successful attack, up from 81 percent the previous year, the largest year-on-year increase in six years.

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Digital transformation is a conversation that is and was taking place before COVID-19. Businesses wanted to know how to become more competitive, reactive, and efficient, and how services for users can be improved. McKinsey’s global survey of 889 executives reported that COVID-19 certainly accelerated digital transformation by several years in some sectors. Many of these changes are expected to remain in place long-term.

Here, we take a look at the top COVID-19 tech trends and how they will remain part of our lives in the future, post-pandemic.

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A new report from cloud business management company Sage reveals that 52 percent of companies say they have accelerated digital transformation plans by three years or more due to the demands of lockdown.

The study of more than 1000 finance leaders across US small and mid-size businesses also shows a growing confidence that they will return to pre-pandemic revenue levels by the end of 2021.

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A new survey of more than 400 IT security practitioners across North America and Europe reveals that 60 percent think COVID-induced remote work conditions have created data security issues within their organizations.

In addition the study, from encrypted USB drive company Apricorn, shows 38 percent say that data control during the pandemic has been very hard to manage. Surprisingly 20 percent of these security professionals admit that their work devices have been used by other members of their household.

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New York is the best state in the USA, and no, I don't just say that because I am a resident. Is it wildly expensive to live in many areas of New York? Absolutely. But you get what you pay for, folks -- parks, beaches, entertainment, restaurants, etc. Look, New York is a trendsetter and leader that was able to overcome the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And guess what? New York is now leading the way to a post-COVID normalcy.

You see, Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced Excelsior Pass -- a digital way for New York residents to prove they are either fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or recently tested negative. This will allow businesses to verify a patron's status before allowing them entry. In other words, things like concerts and sporting events will soon be more accessible, and other states need to follow New York's lead ASAP.

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One thing authorities are learning with the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine is that data matters. Since the first vials of this medical breakthrough began leaving their factories on highly specialized refrigerated trucks in December last year, there have been numerous reports of seemingly avoidable mistakes.

From a miscommunication between logistics officials and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that left 14 states with vaccine shortfalls to reports of vaccine shipments going to waste or spoiling because of poor timing or confusion over protocols, there is a general state of confusion clouding this initial phase of the distribution effort.  With the CDC reporting more than 16 million cases and 300,000 deaths in the U.S. throughout 2020, the stakes could not be higher, and these mistakes could be avoided.

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A new report from cybersecurity firm PC Matic finds that one year on from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 35 percent of Americans are still working from home.

However, the study of more than 5,800 people across the US finds less than 10 percent of respondents are provided with an antivirus software solution for the personal device they use for work purposes.

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The past few months have seen plenty of news surrounding COVID-19 vaccines, from the buzz surrounding roll outs to fears of possible side effects.

As always with a major news event cybercriminals seek to exploit the opportunity it presents. Cloud-native email security company GreatHorn has identified a new pattern of techniques being used to exploit the unease of vulnerable email users by spoofing critical vaccine information.

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New research from network detection and response company Vectra AI shows that 88 percent of companies have accelerated their cloud and digital transformation projects due to COVID-19.

But it also finds that 71 percent of Microsoft Office 365 deployments have suffered an account takeover of a legitimate user's account, not just once, but on average seven times in the last year.

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Cybercriminals had a busy year in 2020, with rapidly increasing numbers of distributed denial of service (DDoS) weapons, widespread botnet activity, and some of the largest DDoS attacks ever recorded. As COVID-19 drove an urgent shift online for everything from education and healthcare, to consumer shopping, to office work, hackers had more targets available than ever -- many of them under protected due to the difficulty of maintaining security best practices in an emergency scenario.

At the same time, the ongoing rollout of 5G technologies has accelerated the proliferation of IoT and smart devices around the world, making unsuspecting new recruits available for botnet armies to launch crushing attacks on a massive scale.  

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When the knock-on effects of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent UK lockdowns are discussed, much of the focus is on the negative impact on the economy, our physical health, and our mental health. But, while the damaging effects are unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed, it’s not all doom and gloom.

While many businesses have suffered as a result of the pandemic, others have flourished. Exercise equipment, homeware, DIY, and gardening retailers, amongst others, were some of the businesses that flourished during the first national lockdown. When it comes to business-to-business, technology providers, ecommerce sites, video conferencing software solutions, and healthcare providers led the way. So did the companies who tapped into their services.

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Six hundred and seventy-five thousand Americans died of the Spanish Flu in 1918, back when the total population of the United States was 103 million. In the current pandemic, American deaths are already above 540,000 (remember when a projection of 160,000 deaths seemed crazy?) but our population is now 331 million. While COVID-19 will undoubtedly kill more Americans than did the Spanish flu, the percentage of the population dying will be much lower than the 0.65 percent death rate in 1918. But the numbers are close enough that one might guess the long-term impact of this pandemic could be very similar to that one.

I don’t think it will be. I think this pandemic will have greater long-term effects than that of 1918 and the reason comes down mainly to technology.

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To this point in my tech predictions for 2021 I have ignored COVID-19, which we all do at our peril. Now that we know the pandemic is real, that it won’t just disappear, and that half a million people in the US (so far) are dead from it, what are predictable longer-term impacts? I see plenty changing in how we work, how we use social media, and how education has generally failed. Coming out the other side of this mess several aspects of life will be different, but school probably won’t be one of those.

I have an unusual perspective on these times since I am a parent of three sons (19, 16, and 14), I have a background in IT, yet my first job out of college 48 years ago was teaching high school biology, chemistry, physics, and vocational agriculture. Oh, and I home-schooled two of my kids for two years ending about 18 months before the pandemic began.

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A new report from BlackBerry shows that as our digital habits have changed over the past year cybercriminals have become increasingly successful at finding and targeting vulnerable organizations.

The greater adoption of digital offerings has exposed companies to inadequate protections for employees and customers amongst an ever-growing and under-secured attack surface.

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