October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month in the United States. Last October, we discussed how the pandemic sparked a shift in cybersecurity needs. Digital transformation efforts were fast-tracked, opening the door for security vulnerabilities.
Last year, we shared that nearly a quarter of companies encountered unexpected IT expenses to address a security breach following shelter-in-place orders, and 20% faced a breach as a result of a remote employee. In September of this year, Tenable published a study that found that 74% of companies who experienced a recent cyberattack attributed it to vulnerabilities in technology put in place during the pandemic.
IT investments were triaged during the early days of the pandemic and any available budget went toward measures to support continued business operations. For example, many companies prioritized quickly deploying the right technology to support day-to-day activities and a seamless transition to remote working, without much emphasis on security measures to guard against breaches and cyberattacks.
The same study by Tenable also found that 80% of security and business leaders feel their organizations are more exposed to risk from remote working. Several factors contributed to this exposure, including a lack of visibility into employees’ home networks and swift migrations of business functions to the cloud.
