Home » Cybersecurity and COVID-19

Cybersecurity and COVID-19

Why Complexity Remains Cybersecurity’s Worst Enemy

Managing cybersecurity is made more difficult by the need to support a complex environment of multiple security products from multiple vendors. Today’s businesses need to protect many different aspects of their operations and getting the best protection for each can require deploying best-of-breed solutions from different vendors. Typically, businesses have addressed new threats by adding another solution to their network, whether that solution can integrate with the existing IT environment or not. Managing multiple security solutions, with multiple sets of alerts, and ensuring there are no gaps in coverage, is a major challenge for CISOs. In Cisco’s sixth annual CISO Benchmark Report, most organizations reported that they found managing a multi-vendor environment to be challenging, with 2...

Cybersecurity will Remain a Priority Despite Reduced IT Budgets, Research Shows

Cybersecurity remains a priority for investment among businesses, according to a Kaspersky report. Its share of IT spending has grown from 23% in 2019 to 26% in 2020 for SMBs, and from 26% to 29% for enterprises. 71% of organisations also expect their cybersecurity budget to grow further in the next three years. This is despite overall IT budgets decreasing in both segments amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and cybersecurity cuts affecting the most economically hit SMBs. External conditions and events can influence IT priorities for businesses. As a result of the COVID-19 lockdown, organisations have had to adjust plans to meet changing business needs – from emergency digitalisation to cost optimisation. The Kaspersky report, based on a survey of more than 5,000 IT and cybersecurity practitioner...

Cybercrime has Increased by 33%, Report Shows

The 100 Days of Coronavirus report – published by Mimecast – shows that the volume of malicious and opportunistic cybercrime has increased significantly by 33% in the period January to March 2020. The new report has found that in the period January to March 2020 monthly volumes of: Spam and opportunistic cybercrime detections increased by 26.3%, Impersonation fraud detections increased by 30.3%, Malware detections increased by 35.16%, and Blocking of URL clicks increased by 55.8%, meaning people are more likely now to click on unsafe links than before the outbreak. Over the months of February and March, as South Africa reported its first case and moved swiftly into lockdown, the Threat Intelligence Team saw dramatic increases in cyberattacks in Sub-Saharan Africa. Carl Wearn, Head of E-Cri...