Cyber-demic Update
Michael Bruemmer
Global Data Breach Resolution @ Experian | CIPP/US and Fraud Expert
April 2021
A monthly digest on the impact of COVID-19 in the cybersecurity space in particular to the vaccine rollout, remote working and rise of new threat vectors.
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Pack Your Bags… and Vaccine Verification
In my 2021 predictions, I addressed contact tracing apps and security vulnerabilities…Same goes for the influx of vaccine verification apps and online platforms…I, like most of you, am getting the itch to travel so I booked a vacation recently to Belize…Requirements were to fill out information online and download a QR code…So if you are planning to travel, be careful how much information you are sharing and what apps you need to use.
Remote Working is the X Factor in 2021
Many organizations are unprepared to respond to a data breach caused by a remote workforce…The Mobile Security Index report by Verizon says that remote work and a more dispersed workforce is opening up breach opportunities and negatively impacting cybersecurity…Now that remote working is here to stay we'll see how organizations fare this year...Hopefully organizations are getting back on track in 2021 because based on the first quarter tally this year of data breaches we have served, we expect 2021 to be even busier…It may be another record year for us with 10% more breach clients…But I have noticed companies are looking to tighten up remote working security with limiting access and download abilities on employees’ computers…A good report to check out on this topic is the Bitglass Remote Workforce Security Report.
Flying Under the Radar
I’ve been noticing a decrease by organizations notifying data breach victims after there has been a breach…Companies are trying to go unnoticed by consumers and regulators when the breach is less than the required threshold for notification…This means that the recent report from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) that 51 million people in the U.S. alone for the first quarter of 2021 had personal info compromised is probably higher…And this data is probably from breaches that actually occurred mid-late 2020 because it takes about 280 days for discovery of a data breach, according to IBM…One step you can always do to protect your information is to keep changing your passwords, read more about that in my colleague Brian Stack’s post.