Three cybersecurity challenges for remote work. Remote work has been extremely helpful over the last year and a half. It also has major advantages for both employees and employers. However, from a cybersecurity perspective, major challenges persist that are extremely important for businesses to recognize and address. Forbes outlines the top three issues here.

Multiple federal agencies fail to uphold cybersecurity standards. Agencies across the federal government continue to fail to meet some basic cybersecurity standards. With the rise of hacks and ransomware cybersecurity incidents, multiple agencies have failed to effectively secure data, a senate report has stated.

U.S., UK, and Australia team up to issue joint cybersecurity advisory. The three cybersecurity agencies and the FBI came together and issued a joint cybersecurity advisory that announced the top 30 exploited vulnerabilities throughout 2020 and 2021. In this issue, they noted that government-sponsored and independent malicious cyber attackers continued to exploit publicly known software vulnerabilities where the intentions were to compromise governments globally.

Covid-19 isn’t the only virus employees could bring back to the office. Many IT leaders believe that employees have picked up bad cybersecurity habits while working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. With 40% of employees plan to bring their personal computers back to the office with them, IT decision makers are becoming more worried remote workers will bring in infected devices and malware. You can read more about that here.

Employee Benefits Security Administration (ERISA) covered plans are tempting targets for cybersecurity hackers. Recognizing this, ERISA (a part of the Department of Labor) issued its very first cybersecurity guidance concerning employee benefits this past spring. You can learn more about their focus on cybersecurity here.

Businesses need cybersecurity protection. With ransomware attacks getting worse, cybersecurity is no longer an option for businesses. A recent survey found that 51% of businesses in America were hit by ransomware attacks in 2020 alone. Ransomware is not going away anytime soon and although crimes of this nature are almost inescapable, protecting yourself and your business is important. Read Forbes’ article on why cybersecurity is no longer optional for businesses.

Pegasus Spyware is a cybersecurity danger. Pegasus, spyware that can sneakily enter a smartphone and gain access to everything on it, including the camera and microphone, has been created to infiltrate devices running Android, Blackberry, iOS, and Symbian operating systems which are then turned into surveillance devices. Pegasus has been built solely for governments to use in counterterrorism and law enforcement work.

$600 million of cryptocurrency stolen and then returned. An unidentified hacker stole $600 million worth of virtual currencies from Poly Network. But 24 hours after the incident, something unusual happened—the hacker began to return some of the stolen money after the company made a public plea. Click here to learn more about the incident.

Multiple ransomware groups jump at PrintNightmare’s vulnerability. The vulnerability in Microsoft software has started to turn into a dream for ransomware gangs. For the second time within a week, security researchers warned that extortionists exploited the critical flaw in an attempt to lock files and shakedown victims. Vice Society, a ransomware group recently seized on the PrintNightmare bug to move through an unnamed victim’s network and attempted to steal data.

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