New Solutions to New Threat: Optimizing the Remote Work Environment during a Global COVID- Pandemic

Given the continuous political turmoil emanating from the nations capital for the past three and a half years, few observers would likely have regarded 2019 as the good old days, but the multiple crises of an ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic combined with a devastated economy, massive unemployment and growing unrest over racial disparities underscore just how fast things can change and how bad things can get without warning. Indeed, the good old days of 2019 appear golden by comparison, and there is currently no real end in sight. These trends have introduced new issues with respect to what types of information security education and maintenance and what protocols are necessary in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as well as comparable calamitous events in the future. The purpose of this research paper is to provide a review of the relevant literature concerning the optimal management of COVID-19 within the management sectors of a cybersecurity infrastructure, as well as address similar societal disasters that should be taken into consideration in the future. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings concerning information security education and maintenance are presented in the papers conclusion.

I. The Current Situation and How It Has Impacted Information Security and Cybersecurity

The number of cases and the death toll attributable to the COVID-19 virus have streadily increased across the country in recent months, and companies of all sizes and types have been hammered by a combination of a turbulent presidential election of unprecedented import, an unrelenting economic downturn, growing civil unrest and increasingly severe climate change-related events that have caused some of the worst unemployment rates in the countrys history. While the current situation is highly dynamic and global COVID-19 case numbers continue to swell by the hour, at the time of this writing more than 40 million people worldwide had been infected by the virus and more than 1.5 million had died from it based on the statistical data that is compiled by Johns Hopkins University each day. From a strictly pragmatic perspective, one of the few bright spots on the current economic horizon has been the growing demand for the accelerated domestic manufacture of personal protective equipment and therapeutic drugs by local, state and federal government agencies (Meredith, 2020).

Against this grim backdrop and as discussed further in the sections that follow below, it is not surprising that the current situation for cybersecurity has also been challenging and increasingly threatening. For example, according to Martinelli and Friedman (2020), There have been several reports from the [information technology] community that there have been more attacks against...

Indeed, cybersecurity was a persistent threat before COVID-19, and not surprisingly, organizations continue to face increasing risks in this area (p. 60). Unfortunately, although the risks that are associated with IT resources continue to accelerate, there has not generally been a corresponding response on the part of the information security community.

A growing body of research confirms that nature imbues many predators with the ability to detect fear, and the current situation is similar with respect to hackers smelling blood among their traditional prey today. This sense of opportunity may help account for the increased cyberattacks that have been experienced by the private and public sectors over the past several months, but the threat has always been there only now it has become more intensified. For instance, one mainstream newspaper warns its readers that:

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our daily lives and routines dramatically. However, it seems that hackers remain...

…3). Based on an analysis of lessons learned from past InfoSec failures with social media platforms, the UK National Cyber Security Center recommends that organizations take the following actions to harden their cybersecurity. With respect to individuals and organizations:

Limit screensharing options;

Do not make meetings public;

Do not share links to meetings on unrestricted, publicly available social media posts;

Ensure users have the most up-to0-date versions of remote access/meeting applications; and,

Ensure telework policies address requirements for physical and information security (COVID-19 Cyber threat exploitation, 2020).

In addition, other lessons learned include the fact that even the most sophisticated security protocols that have been implemented in the past may become obsolete or otherwise vulnerable to novel cyberattacks without warning, and the potential for additional and more severe attacks increases as hackers gain experience and share their empirical observations from the field with others (Mookerjee et al., 2011).

Conclusion and Reflection

The world has always been a hostile environment for humankind, but the recent months have been characterized by a unique mix of anthropogenic crises and natural disasters that have taxed the ability of the most sophisticated cybersecurity networks to protect vital information resources. The research showed that the optimal management of COVID-19 and comparable societal disasters requires ongoing diligence to assess the adequacy and appropriate of existing security protocols and weighing these resources against essential industry cybersecurity control benchmarks. The research was also consistent in showing that far too many organizations are unprepared for existing and evolving cybersecurity threats, but here agin there are some strategies available to help organizations of all sizes and types inform, educate and train their employees concerning these trends and to emphasize the importance of their consistently following security protocols. Finally, organizations must ensure that they have sufficient off-site data backups and security procedures in place to restore…