Most businesses have had to quickly adapt their working processes in response to coronavirus. For some, business paused for a brief period of time but for others, employee’s homes have replaced the office, personal computers are used to access work systems and data is being managed outside of normal working practices.
This increased working-from-home mandate is providing opportunities for cyber criminals who are exploiting remote working methods and the general confusion around the new processes and procedures.
To accommodate this working-from-home mandate within your business, you may have facilitated Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), but without multifactor authentication (MFA) enabled, or on an insecure network, it could open the gateway to hackers. In fact, in 2019, 80% of the ransomware attacks our specialist cyber insurer partner, CFC, handled were initiated through RDP.
As new cases of the coronavirus continue to be reported daily, cyber criminals have also been leveraging the situation to take advantage of those looking for information on the outbreak from the NHS and the World Heath Organisation. In addition, a Twitter user has identified another malware campaign purporting to be a ‘Coronavirus Update: China Operations’. The emails have attachments linking to malicious software. The malicious attempts of cyber criminals are endless.
Each of these challenges can increase the cyber risk and exposure of the Northamptonshire business community. If your business was hacked, you lost some data or faced a ransomware attack, could you operate and would you know how to remedy the problem?
No matter how many precautions you take or how vigilant you and your colleagues are, some cyber-attacks cannot be prevented. This is why we advise you to speak to us about the range of cyber and data insurance policies that are available so cover can be tailored to your risk and exposures.
For further information visit www.towergate.com or contact the Northampton office
on 01604 887300
The information contained in this bulletin is based on sources that we believe are reliable and should be understood as general risk management and insurance information only. It is not intended to be taken as advice with respect to any specific or individual situation and cannot be relied upon as such
Towergate Insurance Brokers is a trading name of Towergate Underwriting Group Limited. Registered in England No.4043759. Registered Address: 2 Minster Court, Mincing Lane, London EC3R 7PD. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority
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