The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has made the concept of working from home a necessity for many businesses across the globe. One of the consequences of this large scale reality is the attending cybersecurity threat the large population of low cybersecurity-conscious individuals working from outside the office confines (perhaps for the first time) are exposed to.

According to the Foundry report, organizations stand to lose more than $100 billion per year to cyber-attacks and fraud globally. This risk exposure is a major concern for many top institutions, especially in the financial space, customers and governments alike.

We hosted Rock Adote, a Cybersecurity expert on an episode of #NextQuestion to shed some light on how the reality of staying at home may impact everyone. And, he shared some insightful tips.

Let us explore a few of them:

Our Banking System is Relatively Safe

One of the early questions I took up with Rock is the question of the safety of our banking system. Quite a lot has been said about how safe our banking system is compared to some other climes.

He pretty much confirmed it.

Personal Privacy Loss and Identity Theft Still on the high

Banks in Nigeria have deployed a plethora of campaigns against personal data theft. This is in response to complaints by millions of customers who about their accounts been cleared by thieves. The cybercriminals got their details either by acting as bank agents or using cloned bank websites to get them.

Usual campaigns by the banks have indicated that the Banks would reach out to customers using only official channels and that transactions that require sharing their personal details should only happen in the banking halls.

The unavailability of the banking halls at this time has opened a window for many to become victims, nonetheless.

Prior to this time, robbers and identity thieves operate mostly at nights/early hours and weekends. But now they have extended their operation time since the customers do not have easy access to banking halls for quick resolutions.

On the Dangers of Working from Home

Mr Adote points out a number of possible cyberthreat susceptibilities associated with working from home. These includes:

• Having sensitive office files on your laptop and your children/wards will sometimes be granted access to play games and do assignments on the same system.
• Open wifi’s do not have the same high-level security encryption as corporate institutions dedicated bandwidth. Yet, workers are doing the same high-level jobs nonetheless.
• Certain email and system restrictions will have to be relaxed to accommodate off location internet restrictions.

According to him, fraudsters and hackers are ahead of the game. And, their lot will be made better by our natural inclination to conceal incidents of cyberfrauds. He shared some useful tips on how to protect yourself:

What you must do

I asked Rock about safety tips individuals and corporates can consider and adopt this period. He shared a number of them in this video below:

A brief summary for you:

• Avoid sharing too much on social media. Be careful about the things you show and mention in your pictures and videos. (Have you seen the video of the #DontRush Challenge with an ATM card?)
• Utilize 2-level authentication for all your accounts as much as possible.
• You may be close to your family at this time. Keep your work system and data away as much as possible. They are not to use your laptop for games and assignments. Neither should they help you fill your excel sheets.
• Check the security of your home network. You may be surprised.

Stay safe friends… we love you!