The exposure to cyber risk has significantly increased due to virtual-first work models. Organizations all over the world are switching to work-from-home models escalating the focus on cybersecurity. Studies have shown that 47% of individuals working from home have admitted to have clicked on a phishing email at work. It is quite evident that cyber-attackers see this as an opportunity to leverage the pandemic and exploit the vulnerability of employees working from home. In most cases, they attempt to deceive the public to click on Covid-19 related news which then directs users to malicious sites. 

You may have heard of credential stuffing, it is one of the most popular techniques used by hackers to use previously stolen login credentials from organizations and attempt to break into accounts on other services because most users tend to use the same credentials across multiple accounts. This is how uninvited members gain access to private video conferences hosted by organizations and obtain confidential information which is then sold to another group. Although cybersecurity was a constant buzzword throughout the years, the pandemic and remote-working caused a dramatic increase in breaches affecting more than half a million people who used video conferencing services. The personal data such as names, passwords and email addresses which were entered to login to meetings were stolen and sold on the dark web – the hub of cybersecurity criminals. 

The cybersecurity landscape is threatened by diversified clusters of criminals

• Employees working under minimal supervision and having plenty of time to explore new fields of interest during their free time may be tempted to carry out a fraud.
• Hackers sweep the web to detect any organizations with insufficient data security measures or any malfunctions in security systems.
• Groups or individuals with cyber attacking capabilities break into computer systems for politically or socially motivated purposes. These cyber criminals are also known as “hacktivists”.
• “Skiddies” or “script kiddies” who are relatively unskilled junior hackers utilize cyberattack packages on organizations to improve their skills. 

The Covid-19 outbreak gave rise to opportunities that boost cyber attacks and threats.

Amongst a plethora of reasons for the recent spike in cybercrimes, the two main causes for organizations to be susceptible to these is because of personal device usage and human error. 

Usage of personal devices 

Almost all the small to medium sized businesses have switched to a “BYOD” or “BYOT” approach where employees can “bring your own device”. This trend enables employees to connect their personal phones, tablets and laptops and access networks or systems consisting of potentially sensitive data causing the organization to be exposed to cyberattacks. Virtual-first models do not guarantee the same standards of cybersecurity provided in a well-equipped environment with sophisticated enterprise prevention and detection measures unlike home Wi-Fi networks which have higher risks of attacks. 

Environmental changes and human fault

Employees would carelessly give access to the wrong people, submit personal data unknowingly to malicious sites, or expect rewards and awards in exchange of personal data. In addition to this, employees are prone to be distracted by visitors, family members or even quick errands to the store before a lockdown, making them even more careless and increases the rate of human error resulting in a leakage of sensitive and confidential information. 

With the increased risk of cyber threats, IT systems and security measures are required to protect systems against cyberattacks. Having said that, a tool that has been built to monitor applications, devices, services, operating systems, network protocols and systems metrics is Nagios Xl. It enables users to make smarter and swift responses by alerting them of incidents and has the capability to monitor database monitoring applications, server monitoring applications and web monitoring applications providing maximized visibility and awareness. 

Nagios Xl is flexible and extensible enabling users to comply with any advanced security requirements on any network. It’s unique architecture makes it compatible with any programming language and is utilized in research facilities, multinational corporations and government offices.

Here are a few reasons why Nagios Xl is the best player for cybersecurity: 

1. Linux based 

Nagios is built on a Linux OS as opposed to other IT infrastructure monitoring solutions enabling development teams and QA teams to determine if the product is in line with security needs. 

2. Flexible deployment 

At no extra cost, Nagios Xl is compatible with multiple offline environments which provide an enhanced level of protection from external cyber attacks. Regardless of whether it requires to operate in a private cloud, public cloud, hybrid scenario or an on-premise cloud, Nagios Xl has its unique strategy for flexibility, security and deployment enabling a user to know where the data is stored. 

3. Scalable  

Businesses are mostly at risk when they expand, on-board new tech vendors, add or change platforms. However, Nagios Xl can monitor any vendor, any device, on any network. In addition to this it notifies the respective individuals of their roles during any incident enabling them to focus on the data that matters thereby, decreasing downtime. 

Introducing a powerful solution to keep up with the ever-evolving trends of the digital space due to the pandemic, is essential. We build custom software tools and integrate any product of the Nagios product suite to convert ideas into reality.