Shifting Cyber Priorities During Covid-19

In times of vulnerability (such as a storm, fire, or earthquake), Scott has seen an increase in adversaries taking advantage of the confusion and turmoil. Fortunately, EEI’s member companies have become conditioned to opportunistic attacks by cybercriminals during difficult times.

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David White (Axio) – So, I mean, we’re currently in the middle of the COVID- pandemic. How have those priorities shifted in the current operating mode?

Scott Aaronson (EEI) – When there is perceived vulnerability, we have seen it time and time again, that is when those adversaries come out. After a hurricane, for example, which we’ve had a lot of experience with these last few years, you see an uptick in scams and cyber probing. And so, our companies have become conditioned of that when there are extraordinary circumstances, a storm, a wildfire, a pandemic, that it’s time to up our monitoring, it is time to up our vigilance. And it’s a time to remind all of our workforce about their role in security. We have to have this … Security’s everybody’s responsibility. There is a culture of security. And Dave, I know you and Axio have been instrumental in that. We can talk about that in a little while. But when we see things like pandemic, when we see things like storms, we know we’re going to see an uptick in cyber activity. And maybe paradoxically because of that, I’d like to believe that our sector is even better prepared during times of duress because of that experience.