The new reality is that the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is currently affecting, and complicates, all aspects of people’s lives.
Construction projects are not immune to this disruption. New protocols for disinfecting machinery and tools, as well as an increased number of hand washing stations at project sites are just a few changes construction companies have made to address COVID-19. All these efforts are critical to keeping everyone safe on construction sites.
However, when people are looking for ways to avoid face to face contact, computers and project servers are more important than ever. Unfortunately, the shift to remote work also provides hackers more ways to infiltrate networks and take advantage of nervous and distracted staff. Cyber criminals understand this and have significantly increased the number and complexity of their cyber- attacks.
To help employees, and the stretched-thin IT staff avoid a cyber-attack, here are some of the more recent social engineering, phishing, data security and ransom ware attacks that have arisen around COVID-19:
Cyber security firms have stated that the new COVID-19 attacks are the largest surge in malware attack types they’ve seen in years, if ever, that have been united by one single theme.
To help combat this substantial uptick in cyber threats, cyber hygiene should be practiced by each and every user. Cyber hygiene is a reference to the practices and steps that users of computers and other devices take to maintain system health and improve online security. These practices are often part of a routine to ensure the safety of personally identifiable information and other details that could be stolen or corrupted. Much like physical hygiene, cyber hygiene is regularly conducted to ward off natural deterioration and common threats. Specifically, construction companies should implement the following hygiene/ safeguards to help stave off the recent increase in cyber-attacks and cyber viruses:
COVID-19 is the great equalizer because no one is immune. The same goes for computer hackers and computer viruses—no system is completely immune from such attacks or attempts to hack. Thus, (as a person would with COVID-19), increase the company’s awareness of its virtual environment and surroundings and take the necessary precautions.
As Ben Franklin was fond of saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” especially when no cure exists for the current viruses attacking the company.
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