Covid19 outbreak has changed many aspects of life and business. The lock-down has disrupted the typical pattern of life. Are you trying hard to avoid turbulence in mind, struggling to defend yourselves against the psychological risks of isolation? READ THIS AGAIN!

Here is the story that helped us reconcile sanity and anxiety in the course of quarantine. Being quarantined and frequently communicating through technology without meeting in person or going to the office has affected sanity. There is a dire need to retain sense during the Covid crisis.

SITUATIONS THEN AND NOW:

However independent we may be, it is still tough to argue against the certainty that our state of affairs and pre-requisites, the social and political systems that we dwell in, and eventually the technology we avail, shape our thought processes long run. Since all we can do in quarantine is connect with relatives, friends, and co-workers through technology. First, I am placing a few instances to site the changes that technology has already done to human minds.

Back then, in the 90s, we conversed. That was what we could call an actual conversation that turned out to be emotionally enriching. But, technology has affected sociability and face to face conversations! Forget about conversations. We do not even remember the telephone numbers that we did back then! The practice of keeping human memory intact has become next to obsolete!

Back then, friendship used to be independent of time. Human has lost patience now. If they do not reply to a text message in 5 minutes, they develop an issue out of it! Furthermore, this dependence on technology hinders our natural growth. A modern kid of 7 years old has the most updated mobile phone in her hands! And a modern mother distracts her kid by showing animations on an iPad, instead of indulging in the actual art of parenting!

CHANGED HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN THE CYBER SPACE

Undoubtedly, Novel Corona Virus has put the world economy at tremendous risk. And the world is on the verge of facing a recession. The global losses, taken together, might exceed failures encountered during world wars I and II combined. Since we have never met this massive global health crisis, fear, stress, and anxiety run high. By this time, most companies have had disruption of significant aspects of their respective businesses in one way or the other due to the ongoing spread of the coronavirus and the rising number of cases of it. Loss of jobs is on the rise now, along with the slowdown of manufacturing. Workers are back to their native places, leaving the coming harvest in unpredictability. Lack of orders has led to a massive diminution of trade. However, the fear of losing your job remains, which might be disturbing your sanity. We need to avoid listening to or watching the news that causes anxiety in us and only seeks updates once a day or twice, maybe. The sudden announcement of someone getting sacked from their job might cause anyone to feel worried. We must gather facts from the World Health Organization’s website and local health authority platforms to keep from troubling our brains with false notions.

EASE THE QUARANTINE STRESS:

Covid-19 may take away some opportunities, but it will create new jobs and skills. Countries have witnessed better healthcare management facilities. Social distancing and maintaining hygiene have become the new normal. So why not embrace the new opportunities for the betterment of the economy?

Learn what exactly is triggering your anxiety. Is it watching headlines on TV and wondering, “what will happen next? “. For many of us, this uncertainty that surrounds corona-virus has become the most challenging thing to handle. We do not know how this will impact us or the economy or how bad things might turn. And this makes it all the easier to exaggerate this enormous fear and panic. So we shouldn’t obsessively check the news updates. We need to accept the fact that we can’t merely control everything.

When the feeling of getting caught up in fear grasps, try shifting your focus around things that you can control. For instance, you might not be able to control the pandemic’s outbreak, but you can take steps to reduce risk among your near ones.

Everyone is going to need a sympathetic ear during this difficult time. Avoid talking about the coronavirus. You need to understand that you’re not alone in your struggles, and also you are not the only one struggling. Everyone has their own.

TAKE TIME OUT FOR ACTIVITIES LIKE READING BOOKS, PLAYING IN-HOUSE GAMES, MAKING A NEW RECIPE, OR A PIECE OF CRAFT OR ART and come out of the virtual world, the technological world for a while. Get out of your house when the sun comes down. Take some fresh air. Walk around your garden. Just make sure to avoid the crowd and obey the restrictions in your locality.

TIME TO MAINTAIN A CYBER HYGIENE

Eminently, maintaining cyber hygiene and personal hygiene has also boosted cyber-security improvement at the user level. We need to sustain cyber hygiene as we buy, play, work, and practically live online. Since our lives are progressively dependent on the services provided by information technology, it is critically necessary to protect the malicious disruption of our information as it can hack any network.

It seems that you cannot finish reading a newspaper these days without being confronted with a story on cybercrime, Cyber-attack, and Cyber-bullying! As a result, the word “Cyber” often conjures up a set of pessimistic connotations about everything disturbing and scaring about the internet. In this fast pacing city world, we are undoubtedly being carried away by technological advancements. Our day to day activities occurs online, starting from banking to shopping to connecting with friends and official work. Hence it is not surprising that we are becoming progressively anxious about how surviving in the technological age would affect us as individuals and as a society. The human user’s frailty has become the central target for the ethically orchestrated phishing scams, cyber-attacks, and data leaks. Thus the reason behind the likelihood of becoming the victim of a Cyber Attack, Data Breach, or hacks solely encompasses more around that one factor, man being hypnotized by technology. Human fallacy has been postulated to be the central cause behind the fundamental breaches in cyber-security.

PRACTICING GOOD HABITS

We must adopt cyber hygiene as a good daily habit. We should practice maintaining and protecting the devices in IT systems appropriately and incorporating the best cybersecurity practices.

It has become essential to Develop the process of setting up an End Point Security to monitor and manage end-users., which must be a primary concern right now since compromises happen at the end-user devices mostly. The common challenges that the IT teams face are remote workers that access crucial business data using their tools. Appropriate configuration and implementation of business services to virtual corporate, private networks, the newly advanced Two Factor Authentication methods, and remote users. So, the IT teams must deploy endpoint security solutions quickly.

One more critical adoption should be Email security for protection against phishing. Sending emails containing malware attachments is a standard implementation by the engineered hackers, especially during this crisis. So be careful of the received mail that reads: “HELPLINE INFORMATION FOR EMPLOYEES IN COVID-19 PANDEMIC “. Not only business data, but your data is also at risk because the outbreak of the pandemic has made it as easy as a pie for the hackers to steal information even through sending text messages, demanding money for the financial help of the poor and Covid-19 affected families. Measures should be taken so that such emails do not reach remote users.

As we are bound to move towards digital transformation, cloud adoption has become more vigilant. In effect, the implementation of Cloud Security will be essential to protect data stored online, as cloud data may be more prone to cyber-attacks.

It is even easier to get caught up in our concerns and fears at times like this. But amidst all the tales of men quarreling over sachets of hand washes, bars of Dettol soaps, bottles of hand sanitizers, and heaps of masks to keep themselves safe and sufficiently essential to remember for a while that we’re all together in this. We also hope to find a permanent solution to this never-ending cybersecurity battle by adapting cyber hygiene to beat cyber threats. As a quote widely known to circulate in Italy brings under the notice of our consideration that, “WE ARE STANDING FAR APART NOW SO THAT WE CAN EMBRACE EACH OTHER LATER,” is what we must always remember.

Stay Safe and Secured in these most uncertain times of our life.