There is a phrase in the oldest Latin satirical poem. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? That translates as “…but who will guard the guards themselves?” Alan Moore, an American graphic novelist used the similar phrase, ‘who watches the watchmen?” in his famous graphic novel, “The Watchmen”.
The phrase is quite famous among social speakers and often used to refer to the law enforcement department, governments, and the media. But in recent times, it is referred to cybersecurity systems too.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) created a paradigm shift in the way we conduct our businesses. Remote working is implemented across all internet-based organizations and employees are made to work from home.
What started as a contingency plan, soon becoming the norm as each day the curve continues. Nearly 88% of organizations encouraged or required their employees to work from home since the coronavirus pandemic began (Gartner). The dependencies on digital technologies for remote working is going to stay well into the future. The fear of cybersecurity risks and gaps start forming in the minds of C-level executives and many companies are quickly adopting advanced employee monitoring and security systems to mitigate the threat of cyber-attacks.
The Possible Threats for Companies by Adopting Remote Work
Did you know, Financesonline survey figured that 64% of employees browse unproductive sites, and 85% use personal email on work laptops?
Some employees even put sensitive business data at risk by using personal USB drives and email addresses.
Many companies (large and small) are impacted due to the ramifications of work from home. Sometimes proprietary corporate data is being accessed from laptops and home PCs that may not have the same level of firewall and security as in-office setups.
When employees are made to work from home, the remote login has a lot of access points to hack. To name a few: browsers, email, video, calls, slack, home wifi network, the router, and free wifi hotspots, etc. Sometimes if the employee downloads a malicious file, clicks the link on a spam email, or an ad, or use the laptop for entertainment or personal purposes, there is a high probability of cybersecurity risk.
Securitymagazine.com recently stated that “the low-security standards of home Wi-Fi systems are a serious threat for the cybersecurity sector at the moment with data of millions of people at stake.”
The management and IT managers are forced to assess the risk to their data, and proactively evaluate data loss prevention processes, as it can impact their reputation going forward.
The cybercriminals have also started to exploit fears around the COVID-19 outbreak to conduct email scams, phishing, and ransomware attacks. These emails and messages entice users to open malicious attachments by offering more information related to the COVID-19 situation but contain malicious files masked under the guise of links, Pdf, Mp4 or Docx files.
Some of the key methods to steal data are:
- Multiple points of contact created by remote login.
- Lack of VPN at home network connections.
- Usage of third party cloud to store data. Since few small and midsize organizations don’t pay for such products and use it for free, they don’t guarantee 100% security.
- Sharing of the Zoom meeting ID in public without a password.
- Phishing i.e. the email that comes to your mailbox that looks legitimate. Example: Bad Zoom links.
- Scam emails or forwards on COVID-19. The forwards state they have a cure or solution from getting infected. It might look very useful and informative hence employees would act immediately.
- Ransomware attacks particularly on medical organizations. As medical organizations cannot spend a lot of money on IT because of public funding, systems are hacked and locked down and criminals demand pay to open it.
- Accessing the company login using mobile phone apps.
- USB Worms.
- Letting the kids use office laptops or using laptops for entertainment purposes. Although this might look trivial in comparison with others, there are several ways to collect the data with fake ads and links.
The Need for Employee Monitoring and Cybersecurity Software
Employee monitoring software like InterGuard and Veriato 360 is providing companies with the means to defend against such risk by delivering insider threat detection, data loss prevention, IP protection, and other cybersecurity benefits. Offerings such as those by Phishcloud provide protection and education to develop a greater awareness and knowledge across employees and to possible threats. A study done by the American Management Association, which was covered by ABC News, found that nearly 80 percent of major companies monitor their employees’ use of email, internet or phone. They also found that some industries, like the financial industry, are especially vigilant. Over 90 percent of these firms said they participated in some type of surveillance.
The Security Benefits of Employee Monitoring Solutions include:
- The monitored employees are more likely to behave correctly, as they know their actions are being recorded and monitored.
- Education of the employees to improve the implicit level of security through knowledge.
- Malicious websites can be blocked – preventing accidental access.
- The new files are automatically scanned to provide proactive security.
- Various security levels can be set. Even providing two-step authentication.
- Restricted access based on hierarchy.
- The devices can be updated remotely – even across multiple platforms.
- The snapshots and screen recording features act as evidence of staff misuses.
- Instant alerts for specific actions or issues.
- Blocking of unsecured networks.
- Restricting applications that can be installed.
- Remote wipe or brick devices if lost or stolen.
The 2018 Insider Threat report from Crowd Research Partners interviewed 472 cybersecurity professionals and 53% confirmed that an insider attack had happened at their organization in the last year. It also found that 90% of organizations feel vulnerable to insider attacks.
Hence employee monitoring software solutions act as a “big brother” that enables organizations to watch exactly what their employees are doing in real-time. It has the ability to securely connect users to their business-critical cloud and on-premise applications, such as video teleconferencing applications increasingly relevant for remote work environments and it is very critical in the pandemic times.
Who watches the watchmen?
Now let’s go back to the Latin phrase we quoted at the beginning of this article. “Who will guard the guards themselves?”
Since strong cybersecurity software solutions act as a firewall to protect from malicious threats, it is important to choose the right one. The coronavirus pandemic and remote working made many companies invest in them quickly. However, most always have questions as they research the most appropriate provider to partner with.
To interact with customers similar to in-house sales reps, top companies like InterGuard and Veriato have setup 24/7, human-to-human interaction – CaaS (Conversation as a Service) from Chat Metrics on their websites to provide a friendly and professional conversation about their offerings.
The Online Sales Executives (OSEs) of CaaS are quickly trained with a sales brief and FAQs and deliver relevant answers/solutions for their website visitors in real-time, round the clock, and across the world.
The OSEs converse in a way that builds trust among the visitors and unlike chatbots, they don’t provide programmed or scripted responses nor get stuck.
The OSEs don’t make a hard sell but influence the users towards the website’s objectives like booking demo meetings with the sales team, sending links to sign-up for a free trial or getting their contact information and qualify them as sales qualified leads.
CaaS has tripled the number of leads generated for employee monitoring and security solutions like InterGuard and Veriato in the last three weeks as the demand for enhanced cybersecurity solutions is on the rise due to remote working.
Amy Marion, VP (Marketing), InterGuard testified, “I didn’t realize how easy the on-boarding process was and as for booking sales qualified demos – they (CaaS) nailed it.”
Zendesk survey stated that Live Chat has the highest customer satisfaction rate at 92% but as much as customers want real-time support, 44% of online customers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a website can offer (Forrester).
CaaS provides proactive live chat experience that ultimately achieves multiple goals for B2B companies by
- improving conversions
- reducing website abandonment
- achieving excellent customer satisfaction and
- providing a depth of insight never before possible through real-time conversations with your website visitors.
Customer engagement in businesses has become very challenging due to the coronavirus lockdown. However, B2B International study found that 56% of the final B2B purchasing decision is made on emotional factors and 44% of the B2B purchasing decision is made on rational factors. CaaS provides human-to-human interaction on your websites to win your B2B customers with emotions.
If you are providing employee monitoring or cybersecurity software solution, this is the right time to accelerate your sales using CaaS – the one that guards the guards.
If you want more information on CaaS (Conversation as a Service) visit www.info.chatmetrics.com and watch the demo video.
CaaS guarantees,
- 25% increase in your booked demos/leads in 30 days.
- Up and running within 48hours.
- Full integrations with your CRM.
- Pricing that is coupled with the increasing conversion rate will reduce your overall cost per lead by 13% or more.
- No lock-in contracts ever.
Sign-up by visiting Chat Metrics and get a free trial of CaaS if you qualify.
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Tags: #PPC #SEM #Business #Sales #Workfromhome #WFH #Remoteworking #SaaS #Salessolution #CaaS #Chatmetrics #Livechat #Cybersecurity #Hacking #Technology #Malware #Cybercrime #Phishing #Dataprotection #Employeemonitoring #Coronavirus #COVID19 #B2B #InterGuard #Veriato
References:
- Podcast: The Cybersecurity Risks of Going Remote (And How to Protect Your Company): Peter McClelland on Marketing Smarts.
- Article: The Top 10 Employer Cybersecurity Concerns for Employees Regarding Remote Work by Securitymagazine.
- Article: What is Employee Monitoring Software? Analysis of Features, Benefits, and Pricing by Financesonline.
- Webinar: Mikko Hypponen – Cyber Security and COVID-19
