Organisations more susceptible to cyber-attacks during the pandemic

Cybersecurity challenges and risks arise in working from home.

Almost half or 49% of senior decision-makers in Singapore believe that their companies are more likely to experience a serious cyber-attack during the pandemic, according to a research from CrowdStrike.

In addition, 40% of respondents in Singapore say that their employer has not given them extra training on the cybersecurity risks associated with working from home especially amongst small businesses with 61%.

A mix of company and personal devices for work creates a range of cybersecurity challenges and risks, with 97% of Singaporeans using a mix of company and personal devices to complete work and 70% using only their personal devices.

More than half or 56% who use a device to work from home believe that these devices are only “somewhat secure” against advanced cyber-threats, whilst 12% say that the devices they use to work from home are “not very secure” or “not secure at all.”

The report further noted that companies should make sure that endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions are able to detect attacks on both corporate and personal devices, and utilise managed threat hunting to detect adversaries in building cybersecurity policies. Companies should also leverage on cloud technology to secure corporate, personal, and even mobile devices that contain corporate data.

Singapore is said to have the highest number of employees transitioning to a work-from-home setup, with 90% of respondents working remotely more often or about the same as before, and 74% working remotely more often as a direct result of the pandemic. This is compared to counterparts like Australia and Japan with 59% and 40%, respectively.