The Coronavirus pandemic has created an enormous challenge for businesses worldwide: the basic one being how to ensure business continuity?

The information technology framework and architecture on which businesses have long depended their departmental servers, digital devices, data centres and cloud systems to let their now-remote employees stay connected to each other. Thus, at this juncture, the company's data becomes very critical and vital. Overnight, the demands placed on the digital infrastructure have skyrocketed, which leaves cybersecurity in bottlenecks, as technology becomes a much bigger and more lucrative target for cybercriminals. Cybersecurity efforts need to be upgraded to prevent a second crisis from emerging: on the digital devices and networks that have become infinitely more vital to companies in recent weeks. In other words, "business continuity" has become a mandate.

While the world struggles with the impact of COVID-19, cybercriminals see it as an opportunity. Since February, IBM X-Force has observed a 4,300 percent increase in coronavirus-themed spam. While organizations worry about newly pressing concerns—workforce well-being, shift to remote work, finance availability, and the resiliency of operations and supply chains—cybersecurity focus is being overshadowed and risks are rising.

As social distancing measures abate, on the course of a possible second wave of coronavirus cases organizations will need to de-risk the enterprise and adapt operations to the "new normal" heavily influenced by the Coronavirus pandemic. This will require a thorough evaluation of pandemic-driven IT and cybersecurity changes, some of which were rapidly put in place during the response phase of the pandemic, followed by strategic adjustments of enterprise architectures, cybersecurity controls, and business processes based on long-term operating strategies. The most vulnerable is the cloud services, which offers significant cost, efficiency, resilience, and potential security benefits over data storage and application hosting alternatives. But these benefits require cloud services to be deliberately and strategically adopted and managed. Companies should consider:

• Adopting formal strategies for the use of cloud services.

• Developing complete inventories of current cloud usage in the enterprise, and rationalizing the use of multiple services.

• Defining data storage policies outlining the conditions required for the use of cloud services, data centre storage, and local storage, particularly for sensitive information.

The demand for a Cloud Security Broker

A cloud access security broker is an on-premises or cloud-based software that monitors cloud activity and enforces security policies. It can help detect and monitor cloud usage within the enterprise, enforce related cybersecurity policies, alert administrators of anomalous data flow, and guard against malware.

IT behemoth IBM clearly lists the following top 5 CyberTech trends in times of Covid-19-

1. Heightened Divide and Network Security.

2. Enhancing Digital Trust.

3. Securing enterprise assets, like content through enhanced Data Security measures.

4. Necessity of a Security Operations Centre.

5. Re-prioritizing Risk Assessment, to help assess the lacunas and devise preventive remedies.

The need of the hour is for enterprises to refresh cybersecurity policies to address pandemic-triggered IT capabilities, architecture, and processes.  Organizations should consider conducting a risk assessment and identifying enforcement mechanisms, such as multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, and automatic logout from unattended devices.