Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Brian Von Kraus, CEO and Founder of FireWatch Solutions.

Background

COVID-19 was declared a national emergency in March 2020 and federal agencies were required to begin utilizing telework whenever possible. Many private organizations followed suit and transitioned to a telework model completely or reduced the number of employees working in their offices. As a result, the use of online communication platforms, cloud computing, and video conferencing increased dramatically. 

Credit: New York Times, Ella Koeze and Nathaniel Popper, April 7, 2020

For those organizations that transitioned to remote work environments, a new challenge presented itself: employees were now accessing company information across unsecured internet channels, sharing potentially sensitive data over video, email, messaging (e.g., Gchat, Slack, etc.), text, or voice. The risk of exposure to various cyber attacks increased exponentially and security managers had to quickly adapt policies and expand their protective efforts to ensure their protocols, procedures, and systems covered an entire staff of teleworkers. 

Human factors became the biggest liability, as compliance…

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