The dynamic spread of COVID-19 and the uncertain developments ahead are causing all of us a hard time. As well as its effect on people, the coronavirus is rapidly disrupting business and consumer activity in the affected areas and beyond.
With more risks arising – such as cyberattacks, data transfer confidentiality issues, concerns about the resilience of primary service providers, project delays, or struggles with maintaining service and supply levels – it is important to take the right actions to organise your business as well as possible.
For this purpose, we have created an overview, with key questions for you to consider and suggested activities for you to conduct.
The impacts of COVID-19 are being strongly felt in the areas of IA and cybersecurity.
The necessary changes in working practices and organisational arrangements in response to COVID-19 will introduce a range of new or enhanced risk areas, and they will also have the potential to disrupt existing systems of internal controls in significant ways. In turn, this will create a need for agile IA functions to better enable the continuity of services by means of remote working – minimising the impacts on, and maximising the value of, the IA activities that are conducted by management and teams across the organisation. IA must stand with the business to provide the support that it needs to deliver its services in a safe, secure, and trusted way.
With remote working, greater dependency on technology, and online interactivity comes the increased risk of cyber threats. As more information and data is transmitted online, and fewer on-site support systems are readily available, the IT management must be ready to provide the safeguards and support that are required in order to ensure that cybersecurity, data protection, and IT operations controls are not compromised, especially when they are particularly vulnerable to external threats in this period.
As the duration of the present circumstances remains unknown, a number of critical areas will need special attention.