It has been a year since businesses adapted to remote working due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The global pandemic disrupted everyday operations of businesses and as a result, cyber risk still remains a grave concern as many business practices have been compromised.
The ZA Central Registry organisation, which is the administrator of South Africa’s .za domain name, recently warned that South Africa is a global target for international fraudsters and cybersecurity measures are more important now than ever before.
“It is essential for businesses to be aware of the nature of these cybercrimes and technology countermeasures to protect their businesses, especially when considering the cybersecurity challenges that have occurred during lockdown,” says Riaan de Villiers, cybersecurity expert and business analyst at LAWtrust.
He describes some of the cybersecurity challenges during lockdown as:
* An increase in cybercrime attacks: Cyber criminals are increasingly targeting users working from home, hoping to compromise their credentials that they can then reuse to gain access to the user’s corporate network.
* Surge in demand for enhanced identity and access management: since many people have been working from home, interest in identity and access management solutions has surged. Identity and access management acts as a foundation for organisations to build an improved cybersecurity posture. It also allows IT (Information Technology) departments to implement multifactor authentication and single sign-on solutions across a range of approved IT applications.
* Rise in Business Email Compromise (BEC): fraudsters are increasingly using email-based cons to catch unaware businesses off-guard. Business Email Compromise is a global phenomenon and a form of cybercrime which uses email fraud to target businesses, individuals and administrations.
“Cybercriminals have always been opportunistic but during the South African lockdown they have been especially persistent. To mitigate risk during lockdown, it is recommended to enforce virtual private network connectivity to corporate resources and implement multi factor authentication as much as possible,” concludes de Villiers.