Importance of Cyber Security in today Situation

Importance of Cyber Security in today Situation

Cybersecurity is comprehensive and includes everything related to the protection of our sensitive information, personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), private details, intellectual property, data and industry and government information technology against theft or damage by criminals and adversaries.

The Covid-19 pandemic has made a huge impact on the culture of work. It is not only the business pressure caused by the unpredictability that has transformed the way we work at a fundamental level. The change in the concept of office work to working from home has changed so rapidly that even the most traditional and technologically backward businesses have had to adjust to the needs of the moment and customise their work as per the evolving working culture.

if they weren’t still acquainted with video conferencing, team IM software, and cloud-based file sharing before March previous year, we’re currently. And only because of these techniques can we survive the biggest pandemic in the world.

Remote work has boosted the digital evolution of businesses. Prior to the pandemic, the study notes that only five percent of survey respondents worked from home much of the time, but now Eighty-Seven percent of workers want the freedom to choose where, how, and when they work.

Data-related threats are connected to these modifications in the work situation. In the Pre-COVID-19 period, plenty of the workers operated from offices where the local area network (LAN), as well as desktops/laptops, were sufficiently secured. Sophisticated technologies can safeguard against cyber attacks, which emerged mainly from the Internet and targeted the enterprise network. Enterprise security technologies secure employees’ devices from targeted phishing organisations that attract them to click on unknown links and attachments.

The following main challenges to resolving cybersecurity breaches were described in the Covid-19 pandemic:

1. A corporate user on the home network can access uncensored internet, personal email, and drives, except in the previous, where the user has been regulated by an IT protection team and is presently a particular phishing theme priority for COVID-19.
2. Wireless routers are a shared asset for the family, neighbors, and tourists. If the data link is unprotected, the data traffic movement is not managed and includes all forms of data search, including personal email and educational needs, social media activities.
3. A home user clicking on an unaware connection or diverted to a malicious website might end up loading malicious codes into a corporate user’s laptop browser that is unawares executed in the background and compromises the business network. Previous Offices provided an additional layer of protection to the effect that workers could check in with their colleagues in the neighboring cubicle or their boss and alert the Information technology security team if they find any unusual emails or connections.
4. The malicious code can also extract justifiable corporate credentials if the home user logs into the enterprise portal or VPN through keylogging or tab-nabbing, thus compromising the security of the entire company.

5. There are also increased risks of IP theft & leakage, particularly for home-based users working for entities.
6. Phishing cases grew by 220 % at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic relative to the annual average, according to a new study by F5 Labs. Covid-19 – related phishing emails were manifested primarily as fake donations to Fraud charities, password harvesting, and malware distribution.
7. To date, 52 % of phishing sites used target brand names and identities in their website addresses in 2020. According to the study, Amazon was the most targeted brand in the second half of 2020. WhatsApp, Instagram, Microsoft Office, Paypal, Netflix, & Apple, were among the top ten most impersonated brands.

Technology has come as a help to survive the biggest pandemic in the world. It is therefore equally necessary for an institution and a company to avoid the threats posed by technology by putting in place powerful and unbreakable cyber protection.

SEBI Updates:

• SEBI on Thursday put in place a robust and stricter cyber security framework for mutual funds and asset management companies (AMCs) to guard against breaches of data leak. The new norms would be effective from April 1, 2019, as per SEBI.
• The move comes after SEBI observed that rapid technological developments in securities market have highlighted the need of a robust cyber security and cyber resilience framework to protect the integrity of data and guard against breaches of privacy. According to the circular, the entities need to formulate a cyber security and cyber resilience policy document adhering to the required framework and document needs to be approved by the board of AMC and trustees. The watchdog has said no person should have any intrinsic right to access confidential data by virtue of their rank or position. The recommendations are in line with that of SEBI high-powered steering committee on cyber security.
• The Securities and Exchange Board of India Thursday announced portfolio concentration norms for equity exchange-traded funds and index funds. SEBI new guidelines are meant to address risks related to portfolio concentration in ETFs and index funds.
• The index shall have a minimum of 10 stocks as its constituents. For a sectoral or thematic index, no single stock shall have more than 35 percent weightage in the index. For non-thematic indices, no single stock shall have more than 25 percent weightage. Moreover, the weightage of the top three constituents of the index should cumulatively not exceed 65 percent.
• The individual constituent of the index shall have a trading frequency greater than or equal to 80 percent, and an average impact cost of 1 percent or less over the previous six months.