The work from home (WFH) model is rapidly transforming the dynamics of India?s IT and ITES sectors. Everything is undergoing radical restructuring, from commercial real estate expenses to hiring of top talents, from communicating abilities to decision making capabilities.
At present, around 90% of the employees from all sects of businesses like IT, E-commerce, BPO, and small and medium enterprises are working from home. And some of them are likely to remain in the same work environment even after the lockdown is lifted. The COVID-19 pandemic will persist longer than what was assumed, with fear and anxiety in the communities worldwide leaving social distancing the only option.
Hr experts believe that WFH is a success as it enhances productivity and reduces variable costs for both employers and employees. It has also opened many new doors for cyber criminals. Video conferencing platform Zoom whose daily users, before the pandemic was 10 million, has now jumped to 200 million. The culprits were quick to spot it’s easy trade-offs and broke into the meetings leaving it distorted. Since then, the Zoom has introduced virtual waiting rooms and enabled passwords to join the meetings. Major cyber security firms and tech giants like Google and Microsoft have raised alarm over cyber attacks over the last month. A US-based cyber-security firm says that companies are struggling with their existing end-point security solutions because they are trying to update it through their Virtual Private Networks (VPN), even that is not safe as the criminals are blowing up the VPNs along with the traffic. They also mark anti-virus software and firewall solutions as traditional and outdated. And for better protection, they recommend cloud-based and artificial intelligence solutions.
Email phishing is trending amongst cyber criminals, its worst hit is the health sector followed by the banking & finance and education sector. They are creating malicious links with a false assurance of deliveries of PPE and Sanitizers, the victims easily fell in their trap as there is an actual shortage of medical equipment in many developing countries. They are also claiming to be government agencies and asking for bank details to put money sanctioned by the respective governments. Even students are not spared as they are stuck at home and learning online.
