Cyber Security

Adapting to a remote workforce

Surveys show a massive shift toward remote and home-based work. Organizations that had a quarter of employees working remotely before the pandemic now report that most of their workforce works from home, and many expanded capacity to support it in a week or less.

While most organizations believe they had adequate work-from-home security preparations, two-thirds are concerned about the security risks of users working from home. The top controls in place are anti-malware, firewalls, virtual private networks and multi-factor authentication.

User awareness ranks highest among the key security challenges, followed by access through home or unsecured public networks and the use of personal devices. Malware, phishing, unauthorized access and unpatched systems are the top attack vectors.

Emerging 5G applications

5G is not just an evolutionary upgrade of the previous generation of cellular. It removes many limits on bandwidth, performance and latency, enabling new applications in eHealth, autonomous vehicles, smart cities, smart homes and the IoT.

With more connected devices at higher speeds, the attack surface grows too. Enterprises deploying NB-IoT or LTE-M are future-proofing their IoT projects, but every new device must be secured, monitored and updated.

Blockchain and cryptocurrency attacks

Blockchains are considered immutable, but their popularity has encouraged attackers to look for weaknesses. A “51% attack”, where one party controls most of a network’s hashing power, can be used to rewrite recent transactions and double-spend tokens on smaller chains.

In practice most losses come not from the ledger itself but from poorly coded smart contracts, compromised wallets and phishing. Independent code reviews and strong key management remain essential.

Internet of Things (IoT) attacks

IoT covers every internet-connected device that is not a traditional computer, from fitness trackers to cameras, cars and industrial sensors. Today there are billions of them.

Devices with flawed or outdated designs are rich targets. Even newer devices with good security design need firmware updates whenever bugs are found, and the applications that control them are a further attack vector.

Phishing scams

Phishing emails and text messages are designed to look like they come from a company you trust, such as a bank, a payment app or a streaming service. They ask you to click a link, update payment details or share personal information.

Warning signs include a generic greeting, urgency about an account problem and links that do not match the company’s real domain. Spam filters stop many of these messages, but attackers keep adapting.

Protect yourself and your team with multi-factor authentication, automatic software updates and regular awareness training. MFA alone makes it far harder for an attacker to use a stolen password.