Last week, I covered this story regarding how remote work not only has improved productivity and work quality, we may also continue to see the remote work model indefinitely.  But, as swords have two sides to them, so does the pandemic and the remote work trends that relate to it.  This recent article from Compliance shows us that other side with some startling COVID-19 related cybersecurity statistics and recommendations for addressing the increased cyber challenges many companies are facing this year.

In their article Cyberattacks Since the Pandemic Are Up, Here’s What to Do About It, Compliance starts by getting our attention with some eye-opening COVID-19 related cybersecurity statistics.  Here are a couple of examples:

• According to Bitdefender’s Mid-Year Threat Landscape Report 2020, global ransomware reports have increased by over 715% over the first half of 2020 when compared to the first half of 2019.
• According to Tessian Research, 47% of employees cited distraction as the reason for falling for a phishing scam while working from home.

And they also note that the average time to identify and contain a breach, per IBM, is 280 days!  To put that in perspective, the economic shutdown began around mid-March (Friday, March 13th was when many of us began working at home full time – of course this started on a Friday the 13th, right?) and it has been 236 days since that day.  So, some of you that began full-time remote work on that day may have encountered a breach that you’re not even aware of yet.  Yikes!

Compliance also provides four terrific recommendations that your company can do to “reduce the risk of becoming one of the statistics” they cite.  I won’t steal their thunder – you can check out the additional cyber stats and their recommendations here.

So, what do you think?  Are you surprised by the extent of increased cyberattacks since the pandemic?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.