As the pandemic subsides and people begin to funnel back into their offices cybersecurity dangers are at a heightened risk. Cybersecurity experts claim that malware or other invasive software could be hidden within employees personal devices. Experts say they’re seeing it more and more often; and this malware on employee computers is a real threat for employers and employees.
Malware, hacking, and ransomware have all been buzz words in the media over the past few weeks, making big headlines for various reasons. Now that more employees are returning to the office with their devices-- after working from home for so long --that’s a real concern when exposing those possibly compromised devices to valued data.
Cybersecurity expert Mike Simon with Critical Insight Security expresses his concerns with employees coming back to work.
“There is sleeper malware that’s specifically looking around and seeing if it’s on a home network and then going back to sleep. If it wakes up and it’s on a corporate network, it’s going to activate,” said Simon.
Simon says employees working from home may have unknowingly picked up the malware.
“It’s as if everybody has been working from a café for the past year. They were not in that carefully controlled corporate environment,” said Simon.
“The people the laptop shared the network with include family members, children, teenagers--all kinds of things that the company doesn't control,” said Simon. “Some of the big tech companies will have put things in place to alleviate just the problem I’m talking about right now, moving between your home office environment and working back in a physical office.”
Simon added that more non-tech focused companies are at an elevated risk.