Every week during the last couple of months I have seen an ever-increasing number of cyber-attacks designed to exploit the present Covid19 crisis. Some recent instances include:

Fake websites that promise to provide vital information about Covid19 include videos that contain the Grandoreiro Trojan. Attempting to play the videos leads to a nasty and sophisticated payload being installed on visitor devices. A variety of techniques such as keystroke logging, blocking access to websites, unwanted restarts, access credential thefts and more are possible. This trojan is also very difficult to detect and remove.

Phishing emails supposedly from popular package carriers such as FedEx and UPS claim to be notifying customers about delivery delays due to a variety of reasons. These emails ask the recipient to open an attachment to fill in missing details or to follow links, but they actually contain the Remcos RAT or Bsymem Trojan.

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One thing that cyber-criminals love to see is businesses operating outside of their normal routines. Non-routine operations can cause confusion and chaos. New ways of operating must be developed and fielded on the fly. Personnel are often required to work from remote locations and may need to undertake duties that are new and unfamiliar to them. This is almost sure to cause IT personnel to become overwhelmed, which can cause delays that can seriously affect business operations.

And when it becomes a question of providing services or maintaining security, most businesses will opt for continuing services and dealing with security matters later. Such situations not only greatly increase the number of attack surfaces and vectors available for cyber-criminals to exploit, it also increases their chances of success in any given attack. The current pandemic situation has them all licking their chops!

Outside of war, I can’t think of more widespread and disruptive disaster scenario than a pandemic response of this magnitude. Unlike earthquakes or hurricanes or floods or most other catastrophes, pandemic interruptions are anything but localized; they affect virtually every business and person on the planet.

People are afraid of getting the flu, and of course they are also afraid of losing income and not being able to pay their bills. They fear that perhaps their employer companies will fold, and that they won’t be able to catch up once things settle back down. Such fears can lead to mistakes and security failures. That is why businesses should be increasing their security efforts, not letting them fall along the wayside.

Businesses should ensure that all their systems have logging enabled, and that monitoring of those logs is being undertaken. If possible, the number of employees dedicated to security monitoring should be increased. This effort will be much easier to implement if cross-training of personnel and full written operating procedures are in place; a lesson that should be learned from the current emergency and implemented in written pandemic planning.

In addition, businesses should ensure that secure mechanisms for remote working are in place. It is important that not only secure connection mechanisms are in place, but that multipart authentication techniques are used to the greatest extent possible. Whitelisting of authorized devices, tokens, digital certificates and biometrics should all be considered.

Just as important as technical security, businesses should ensure that all personnel are receiving security and awareness training. They should be fully trained in how to secure their laptops and home computers, how to connect to business assets securely and how to respond if they suspect they are vulnerable or being hacked. Responding to incidents quickly and correctly are key factors in minimizing damage from a security event.

Pandemics are fairly rare, so organizations may not give them as much attention as other kinds of potential business interruptions. That means that pandemics such as COVID-19 (Coronavirus) can catch them unprepared. Of course, pandemic planning is highly dependent on the type of organization that is involved. This makes appropriate policies and procedures very different for different organizations.

Close contact (within 6 feet) between individuals is the number one factor in the spread of pandemic viruses. Any business environment that brings people into close contact are the most susceptible to the flu. For example, essential job types such as health care workers and first responders are obviously at very high risk since they are dealing directly with affected persons in many instances. Other businesses that are essential for day to day living such as banks, grocery stores and other retail organizations also pose a high risk of infection to customers and employees. After all, people in these businesses pass closely by one another, and what is worse, must stand in line to pay for their purchases or to do their banking business. Employees such as tellers or check out/counter workers have it worse since they must come in close contact with a large number of different people during the day.

Protecting yourself and your staff is most problematic for such organizations and workers. This is largely because of the manner in which flu viruses are transmitted. The number one vector is droplets from coughs or sneezes. These are introduced into the environment by people that don’t or can’t cover their mouths and noses when they cough or sneeze. If these droplets are inhaled or get in your eyes you may become infected. More insidiously, coughs or sneezes can also produce micro-droplets or aerosols. These can be so small that they are largely unaffected by gravity and may waft about the environment for some distance, and can even be small enough to penetrate dust masks and tissues. These are very hard to protect against, requiring high efficiency respirators/masks and face shields or goggles. In addition, infection may also be possible from touching infected surfaces and then touching your eyes, nose or mouth.

There are also many non-essential organizations or businesses that pose a high to medium risk of infection by pandemic viruses. These include concert venues, airlines, conventions, casinos, cruise ships, churches, and other venues where people are in close contact. There is an answer for these organizations, as unsavory as it is: simply cancel these types of gatherings. Unfortunately, the economic consequences of canceling such things can be very high (as can be seen in the recent downturns of the stock market). On the bright side, pandemics are usually of fairly short duration. This allows most businesses and organizations to recover once the threat has passed.

In contrast to these types of organizations are those that have little or no interaction with the public or suppliers. For example, offices and organizations that provide services over the internet or telephone are considered to be at low risk. They basically have to worry most about infection spreading among their employees. Fixes for these types of organizations include teleworking (preferred), employee awareness training, putting barriers or distance between employees, mandating that workers who are sick (or who suspect that they may have been infected) take sick leave/work remotely and ensuring that basic health and sanitation measures are in place at the workplace. In addition, anyone who becomes sick at work should be provided with a face mask and sent home or to a health care facility immediately. Businesses should also pay special attention to personnel that live with or have close contact with those who are at very high risk such as health care professional. These personnel should work remotely or should be tested for infection if at all possible. The latest studies suggest that Coronavirus may possibly be spread by infected people that do not yet have symptoms, or those whose symptoms have disappeared.

The number one rule for all people is this: if you are sick or think you may have been exposed to a pandemic virus, stay away from other people. If you must interact, wear a face mask (N95 or better if possible) and clean your hands often. And remember, you should continue to be careful for some time after your symptoms disappear. You may still be infectious.

One thing I notice while doing information security work is that organizations tend to segment IT responsibilities into separate departments or areas of responsibility. There will be employees or groups responsible for networks, applications, servers, desktops, databases, help desks and information security. This is perfectly understandable given the complexity of handling even modestly-sized information systems. Such specialization allows individuals or groups to concentrate on their areas of responsibility and become efficient and expert in their specialties.

However, this very segmentation of duties usually has a big downside for information security at such organizations. The problem is that for an information security program to be successful it must be managed in a holistic manner, accounting for and amalgamating each mechanism and process in the entire program. If not, neglected systems or systems that are misconfigured for the environment occur and suddenly there are exploitable security holes in the network. And like a dike holding back the sea, just one hole can lead to disaster. That is why it is imperative that each IT function be fully aware of what all the other IT functions are doing. In other words, they need to communicate among themselves in an inclusive and professional manner.

Unfortunately, human weaknesses such as ego, hubris, complacency and ignorance come into play when trying to facilitate such intercommunication. Often in the organizations I’ve worked with, the information security department is well aware of the problems I detailed above but are helpless to correct them. This is because IT security departments are usually treated like poor relatives by the other IT departments and senior management. They just don’t have the clout needed to get their programs and processes implemented in an effective manner. To other IT departments and management, information security processes are just a roadblock to functionality and a drain on the budget.

Or perhaps, even if IT and senior management are interested in backing information security, the corporate processes in place for requesting and implementing changes to network systems and processes are so ponderous and full of contention that they lose all effectiveness. It may take weeks or months to implement one simple policy change for example.

That is why I champion the need for a C-level individual (or group) to deal with the problem. I would call them information security coordinators or something similar. Their job would be to bring departments together to discuss what they do and how it could affect the security of systems and information. It would also be their job to coordinate this information and identify holes in the information security program. With C-level authority, they can then better remediate the identified problems without undue bureaucratic entanglement or having to deal with rice-bowl mentality. One thing I learned well when I first started in this profession is that without senior management backing and approval, an information security program is going nowhere!