Returning to office will create complex cybersecurity challenges and this will be the first major cybersecurity trend of the year and will result in a number of complex challenges.

CISOs will grapple with the consequences of decisions they made in 2020. First, they’ll likely have to “un-cut” the corners they took in the spring when they were forced to create widespread remote work capabilities.

Vaccinated employees will return with infected devices. Analysts say we’ll really begin to see the consequences of 2020 “rush jobs” when employees get back in the office. While the workers will receive vaccinations, their devices and applications will still be infected. Last June researchers reported a spike in attacks and data breaches originating from mobile endpoints.

Threat actors will prioritize SaaS applications and cloud services. Sure, it’s primarily tech groups that must deal with this, but because many businesses broadened their footprints with software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and cloud services, threat actors will likely find new ways to exploit these targets.

Vaccines will give rise to misinformation and phishing attacks. Finally, and maybe worst of all, the availability of real vaccines will provide threat actors with a new channel over which to distribute misinformation, as well as new targets to prioritize. Last year showed that cybercriminals never waste a good crisis, using the coronavirus to disguise phishing, Trojan, and rogue app attacks.

© National Security Institute, Inc. www.nsi.org