Half of Security Professionals Had No Contingency Plan in Place for COVID-19

BUCHAREST, Romania, June 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Half of infosec professionals (50%) revealed that their organizations didn't have a contingency plan in place, or didn't know if they did, for a situation like COVID-19 or a similar scenario. This lack of forward planning has come at great risk, as 86% of infosec professionals admitted that attacks in the most common attack vectors were on the rise during this period. Cyberwarfare and IoT as an attack vector were reported to be up by 38%, and APTs and cyberespionage IP theft and social media threats/chatbots by 37% — all of which could be an indication of a bumper year for breaches.

Infosec professionals know that strategic changes need to be made rapidly, with 81% sharing their beliefs that COVID-19 will change the way their businesses operate in the long-term. These findings, and more, are revealed today in the first instalment of Bitdefender's yet to be released global 10 in 10 Study. The section — The Indelible Impact of COVID-19 on Cybersecurity — details the pressures faced by infosec professionals during COVID-19. It explores how these pressures are testing the effectiveness of security measures, and highlights the changes they will need to make within their organizations as a result. The study takes into account the views and opinions of 6,700 infosec professionals of which 23% are CISOs, CSOs and CIOs across the UK, US, Australia/New Zealand, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark and Sweden. Respondents represent a broad cross-section of organizations from fledgeling SMEs, through to publicly listed 10,000+ person enterprises in a wide variety of industries, including finance, government and energy.

The risks are immediate and felt by some more than others

As more employees work from home than ever during the pandemic and possibly many more will want to in the future, infosec professionals are concerned about the security implications. More than one in three (34%) say they fear that employees are feeling more relaxed about security issues because of their surroundings. In addition, others say that employees not sticking to protocol, especially in terms of identifying and flagging suspicious activity, is a worry (33%). Considering the perceived rise in phishing and whaling attacks, 33% of infosec professionals are also concerned about their colleagues falling prey to these attacks, and 31% cite the risk of a serious data leak unwittingly caused by employees. A quarter (25%) are also rightly worried about bad actors targeting people working from home with malware and ransomware. This point may already have been proven by the reported increase in this attack vector. 

You can read more on the report here.

About Bitdefender

Bitdefender is a global cybersecurity leader protecting over 500 million systems in more than 150 countries. Since 2001, Bitdefender innovation has consistently delivered award-winning security products and threat intelligence for the smart connected home, mobile users, modern businesses and their networks, devices, data centers and Cloud infrastructure. Today, Bitdefender and its Labs is also the provider vendor of choice, embedded in over 38% of the world's security solutions. Recognized by industry, respected by vendors and evangelized by customers, Bitdefender is the cybersecurity company you can trust and rely on.

SOURCE Bitdefender