2020 , Roy , 2020 and Anyanwu et al , 2020 ). Expectedly , the numbers of cyberattacks themed attempts escalated by some 30,000 % as malicious attackers took advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic ( Desai , 2020 ; Himmelsbach , 2020 ; Wong , 2019 and Kaiser & Ramaswami , 2020 )
As the boundary between work and private life blurred and the cost of the two most important components of remote work and digital collaboration ( electricity and internet access ) escalated , cloud natives conducted activities over residential-focused ISP ( Internet Service Providers ), unmanaged routers , printers and unofficial automation systems making eavesdropping unavoidable . Branscombe ( 2020 ) highlighted employees ’ preference for using their smartphones for web access during the lockdown , increasing cloud traffic from unmanaged and unsecured devices . These events only further widened the horizons for cyber-attacks and multiplied possible failure points whilst exacerbating existing vulnerabilities . Most of these attacks expectedly take advantage of activities and events around the Covid-19 pandemic ( Curry , 2020 ).
Reports have highlighted that Covid-19 themed cyberattacks proliferated during the pandemic , accounting for over 80 % of all attacks and emanating from more than 51,000 Covid-19 themed domains . Cisco Talos Intelligence Group documents four ( 4 ) broad categories of Covid-19 themed cyberattacks : malware and phishing campaigns , health sector targeted attacks , financial fraud and disinformation . Other attacks include smishing ( SMS phishing ), vishing ( voice phishing ) and pretexting ( Fruhlinger , 2020 and Branscombe , 2020 ).
Woollacott ( 2020 ) highlighted that opportunistic detections , impersonation , malware and URL blocking all went up by 26.3 %, 30.3 %, 35.16 % and 55.8 % respectively in the first 100 days of the Covid-19 pandemic . This underscores the urgent need to recalibrate and strengthen existing cybersecurity architectures and mindsets through investments ( Mutune , 2020 ).
Prominent among risks associated with remote work arrangements include breaches associated with Access Authentication , use of multiple devices , increased data sharing via unsecured gateways & corridors , the proximity of IT support , Siliconlevel security risk , etc . As economies and institutions re-open , proactive organizations are already assessing the probabilities and possibilities of a permanent shift to a new normal in terms of work location and are