News about the re-deployment of cybersecurity staff towards other aspects of the information technology functioncomes from TechRepubic. At the same time, 23 percent of firms reported cyberattacks at their organizations have increased since transitioning to remote work. This comes in the context of companies improving their cybersecurity activities and measures in 2019, particularly at board level.
To consider the risks of taking key staff away from cybersecurity tasks, Max Vetter of Immersive Labs says: “The news that 81 percent of security professionals have seen their job change due to COVID-19 is no real surprise. With workforces transitioning to remote working security teams have had to contend with a whole new set of problems and threats that many have not had to face before.”
However, this does not mean the companies must downplay cybersecurity matters, as Vetter notes. The responsibility rests on managers of IT departments, to determine where resources should be best deployed and what the gaps in security protocols and activities are. Through proactive management some of the external threats can be reduced.
However, Vetter also looks at the complexities: in trying to juggle resources and risks: “This raises the additional complexity of security professionals having to potentially learn new skills or how to handle new situations in a remote environment, This is a new situation for many security teams, and an area that traditional training cannot cover. It is important that teams are able to upskill themselves on the most recent threat data to ensure that they are sufficiently battle tested if a hacker targets their company’s remote workforce or systems.”
