ZOMBIE COMPUTER ARMIES TARGET YOUR WORK FROM HOME EMPLOYEES

According to the FBI, cyberattacks are up 300% since COVID forced employees to work from home. While you’re working, sleeping and everything in between, malicious botnets (networks of computers) and hackers are relentlessly testing for vulnerabilities that will give access to your company’s most valuable data.  Once they’ve gained access to your devices (95% occurs through human error), they will shut down your website, freeze up your sales process, lockdown email, and stop all communications. Not only will they demand a hefty ransom to give you back control, they often simultaneously steal and threaten to sell your coveted company intelligence and/or customer data on the dark web, unless you pay them even more money.

Hackers have historically focused on big targets – the FBI, Apple, Wall Street Journal and Twitter – have all been victims of cyberattacks this year. More recently, hackers’ attention has expanded to small businesses with 43% reporting being targeted. Working ferociously to stay ahead of these criminals are the defenders of your data…your Internal IT teams and external experts who are creating defenses against the most malicious, disruptive, and inventive cyberattacks that are evolving at an astounding pace. With ransomware, employee error, and phishing on the rise, experts predict cybersecurity incidents will cost businesses over $5 trillion within the next five years.

How do you stay ahead of malicious hackers? Here’s what Kevin Villanueva, Partner at Moss Adams where he leads the firm’s IT Infrastructure and Security Practice, recommends as “must do’s” to protect employee and company data as you continue to support your work from home employees.