WITH the hybrid workplace becoming the new norm amid the Covid-19 pandemic, company executives are reminded to protect customer data, especially those stored in a device used for remote work.
According to the IBM Institute for Business Value’s 2021 CEO Study, majority, or 51 percent, of the Filipino company officials noted that establishing an “anywhere workplace” is a challenge they must overcome to allow continuous business operations.
IBM Philippines President and Country General Manager Aileen Judan-Jiao, in an interview with the BusinessMirror, stressed that cyberhackers have been taking advantage of the accelerated shift to digital. Phishing activities, she noted, have even targeted employees’ laptops and other devices used outside of the workplace.
“We need to be mindful of how we preserve customer privacy. Because many are working from home, there are people who are taking advantage of this social engineering, like phishing attacks,” said Judan-Jiao.
Phishing is a type of social engineering attack that tricks the public into providing sensitive and personal information. This is usually in the form of suspicious mobile messages, emails and links sent to potential victims.
Monetization or just for the thrill
IN general, the IBM official said hackers usually focus on illegally obtaining private data and credentials that they can sell, like credit card numbers.
“What is marked as private? In recent cases, it is about healthcare data. Some try to monetize that,” she said.
While money is the usual motivation for these hackers, Judan-Jiao said some launch phishing attacks “just for the thrill of it.”
As such, she said companies should extend the same cybersecurity protection to the devices used by their employees outside of the office to block the threats.
“Because if you do not deliberately look at what to protect, you can be attacked by things like ransomware. If the home device that you use is not your work device or at least it is not similar protection that you have in the office, you are going to have a challenge, you can be a target,” Judan-Jiao said.
“If you think about those who tried to do it [phishing], they are shifting from the office to the end users.”
Judan-Jiao said being victimized by phishing activities could be avoided by simply having awareness on the matter.
“If all of us can just raise the level of awareness that we check before we click, we validate, and we authenticate, it will already help all of us.”
According to technology experts, cyberhackers have been keeping up with the times and technology. Fraudsters are even creating localized and holiday-themed phishing emails to entice the customers with false rewards.
Helpful technologies
THE IBM survey revealed that the internet of things or IoT (88 percent), cloud (74 percent) and artificial intelligence or AI (65 percent) are the top technologies the local CEOs expect to deliver benefits for their operations.
“A lot of what you hear about digital transformation, they are enabled by technologies like cloud, artificial intelligence, and IoT,” Judan-Jiao said.
Among the benefits of using such technology is data analysis, the IBM official said. She said AI can help the human workforce in crunching numerous data in a short period.
The IBM official said these technologies would also require protection.
“In cloud technologies, you don’t exactly physically see where the resources are. They are somewhere out there but you are trusting that it is managed well,” said Judan-Jiao.
“You need to be mindful of cloud security and even go technical as applications go containerized, meaning they can go on-premise, off-premise, anywhere workplace.”
Follow the regulations
WHILE companies see the necessity of integrating technology, the majority, or 60 percent, of the Filipino firms also noted that regulations would have “significant impact” on their business.
Judan-Jiao said that an example of such regulations is the lockdown protocols imposed by the Covid-19 Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).
“When we had a lockdown, we faced new regulations that were new to us as defined by the IATF,” she explained. “If you look at that, they are government regulations that impact the way we work.”
Since last year, the IATF has been prescribing lockdown measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 in the country. As such, it limits the activities for many sectors based on their relevance and impact on the economy.
Judan-Jiao said that the IATF also imposed a minimum health standard amid the pandemic—something that companies were not seriously concerned about before—affecting their operations as well.
The IBM official said that firms also constantly watch out for announcements from government agencies, such as the Department of Labor and Employment and the Department of Trade and Industry, so they can adjust accordingly.
Apart from this, Judan-Jiao said that industry-related policies and regulations may also have a substantial impact on their businesses.
She cited Republic Act 11534 or the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) law, which covers many industries, including the business-process outsourcing sector.
Under CREATE, the corporate income-tax rate is reduced to 20 percent from 30 percent for domestic corporations with net taxable income of P5 million and below and have total assets of P100 million and below effective July 1, 2020. All other local firms and resident foreign companies are imposed a 25-percent income tax.
Indeed, it need not be stressed how the pandemic has changed the world upside down, unleashing adverse impacts, but also allowing for everyone to institute little-heeded reforms before, or seizing opportunities to innovate to save lives and businesses. The planet is on “reset” mode, as some experts have put it, and humans must adapt as quickly or stagnate at their peril.