Email Security Blog

COVID-19: Prepare Your Employees and Your Business to Work from Home

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has quickly changed the way in which many companies do business. For those who can, organizations worldwide are instituting new work-from-home policies. In the rush to protect employees from the spread of the disease, many are forgetting the need to also protect them from hackers. Thankfully, that’s where INKY comes in.

When it comes to cybersecurity and phishing scams, the greatest obstacle is human error. A simple click of a link in a malicious email by an unknowing employee can cost your company tens of thousands of dollars, not to mention the customers you might lose in the event of a data breach. But you know about these risks… and that’s why you’ve trained employees in the office to be careful with suspicious emails. So far, you’ve been lucky.

Fast forward to today. Think about your employees in their new remote work environment. The implications of COVID-19 have given them a whole new set of distractions, as they’re left thinking about the health of their aging parents, the potential of a recession, and the safety of their family. Couple that with a work environment that may be less than ideal. Perhaps all three children are home from school. Maybe the dog won’t stop barking. It’s even possible that their make-shift office is not quite as comfortable as the one in your building. Roll this all together and the chances your remote employee could fall for a phishing email multiply substantially.

To make matters worse, the escalated number of remote workers due to the Coronavirus makes for plenty of opportunity for cybercriminals. Hackers worldwide find themselves like kids in a candy shop. Remote workers provide the perfect scenario for CEO impersonation, also known as Business Email Compromise (BEC). If you’re not familiar with it, it’s is a form of cyber-enabled financial fraud whereby the hacker impersonates a high-level executive in order to trick a subordinate employee into transferring money or paying a fictitious invoice.

If you’re still not convinced of the dangers posed by working remotely, consider the alert sent on March 13 by the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber agency. It warned, “As organizations elect to implement telework, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) encourages organizations to adopt a heightened state of cybersecurity.”1 One of the specifics mentioned was the fact that “Malicious cyber actors may increase phishing emails targeting teleworkers to steal their usernames and passwords.”1

So, what can employers do to protect their companies from cybercriminals in the wake of COVID-19? Arm employees with the best cloud-based email security software available in the war against phishing – INKY. Designed to catch everything from spam and malware to phishing threats and CEO fraud, INKY® uses intelligent machine learning algorithms to identify abnormalities in emails, even if the threat has never been seen before. INKY’s Banner warns employees of threats, while protecting, training and empowering users across the enterprise. What’s more, installation is simple. INKY uses the latest Microsoft technologies throughout the setup and deployment process. Most customers are up and running in under an hour – even with remote employees.

The Coronavirus has given us all plenty to think about. At INKY, we’re happy to take one of the biggest worries away by keeping the integrity or your company’s data and email security intact. Learn more about email security, and how INKY® can help you prevent phishing attacks.

 

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INKY® is the emerging hero in the war against phishing. An award-winning cloud-based email security solution, INKY® prevents the most complex phishing threats from disrupting or even immobilizing your company’s day-to-day business operations. Using computer vision, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, INKY® is the smartest investment you can make in the security of your organization. INKY® is a proud winner of the NYCx Cybersecurity Moonshot Challenge and finalist in the 2020 RSAC Innovation Sandbox Competition. Learn more about INKY® or request an online demonstration today.

 

1Source: https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/aa20-073a