The Hidden Dangers of Home Working

Business travellers have long been targeted by hackers and malware malcontents while on the road. Lockdowns are now bringing those technical threats into the home.

“How come there is no cure for a virus that can be killed by soap?”

At first glance, I thought this was just another of those glib memes suffusing social media.

But it loosened a cog in my head. Are the answers to today’s toughest conundrums hiding in plain sight? Or are low-tech solutions all we have for some vexing challenges?

Shortly after spotting this rhetorical question on Twitter, I read that “50 potential vaccines and nearly 100 potential treatment drugs” for COVID-19 are in development.

We will all, presumably, require vaccination in future to be permitted to travel. But for now, the best we have are hand-sanitisers, standing two metres apart and virtual trips.

“We will all, presumably, require vaccination in future to be able to travel. For now, hand-washing, standing two metres apart and virtual trips are our best shots.”

Making Sense of Science

For most of us, COVID-19 remains enigmatic. We have absorbed a great deal of science so far this year, but the intricacies are confusing. Will we ever understand the coronavirus’s variegated impacts on different bodily mechanics?

Despite reading every report I can find, I freely shrug and hold up my hands about “asymptomatic transmission” and the efficacy of antibody test kits.

And that may just be the point we are at right now.

“2020 has taught us a great deal about things we never anticipated needing to know. But chasmic gaps remain between our knowledge base and our behaviour.”

Reappraising New Realities

So far, 2020 has taught us a great deal about things we never anticipated needing to know. But chasmic gaps remain between our knowledge base and our behaviour.

Take, for example, the fact that a virus for which the highest national mortailty rate is 14.3% (Belgium) has instigated “the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” according to the IMF.

Shfits in basic understanding are causing us to constantly reappraise the future. While we may feel hopeful, the statistics beat us back down. In the travel sector, for example, we are vicariously traversing an ever-more apocalyptic landscape:

–       96% of all worldwide destinations have imposed travel restrictions (UNWTO)

–       USD314 billion; the estimated drop in 2020 airline revenues vs 2019 (IATA)

–       75 million travel and tourism jobs are at risk across the globe (WTTC)

It’s little surprise, therefore, that Singapore Airlines says it is “confronting its greatest challenge in history,” or that Marriott’s CEO believes many hotels may never reopen. Indonesia’s President Widodo estimates the economic cost to the country’s tourism industry will surpass USD100 billion.

Hack to the Future?

Because most of us are unable to take a plane, stay in a hotel or even visit the office, we are buying into a notion that the future of business communications is online.

Using overloaded wifi networks. And overly trusted applications. While hackers rub their hands with glee.

It feels like we haven’t learned very much.

In the late 2000s, nearly 10 years after the Millennium Bug, several business magazine articles addressed a common concern. I know this because I was commissioned to write some of them.

These pieces queried the wisdom of travellers using insecure wifi networks in airports and hotels.

A lethal cocktail of open-source software, flimsy anti-virus protection and public-access wifi rendered company databases and technical systems vulnerable to misuse.

Are We Properly Encrypted?

Fast-forward to the 2020 lockdowns, and the cross-hairs have shifted into our own homes.

Over the past week, I have registered for two Asia-based webinars. Both times, I gave up halfway through because the wifi support was insufficiently robust. Anyone watching the One World Together At Home online concert will have experienced variable broadcast quality. TV news interviews via VOIP suffer similar issues.

Ah yes, but surely 5G will deliver us to a promised land free of buffered slides and badly vocodered speakers?

Perhaps. But a lesson of COVID-19 is that we are less technically prepared than we assumed.

Many of us attempt group chats and e-conferences using applications that – I can attest from personal experience – can be remotely disrupted. We freely download photogenic “meeting backdrops” without checking if they are properly encrypted.

“We freely download photogenic ‘meeting backdrops’ without checking if they are properly encrypted.”

Daily usage of laptops and phones at home is creating a dream-like flow of continuous data for hackers and spammers. Sophisticated malware attacks are being made possible by our rudimentary grasp of how to protect ourselves when the office technical support line is engaged.

How Safe is Home?

As business travellers, we invariably felt a degree of technical comfort when arriving home. The voracious online wolves were less likely to hack us behind our front doors. They preferred the unprotected prairies of hotel rooms, airport lounges and coffee shops.

COVID-19 has debunked that myth. Everyone everywhere is fair game now.

Let’s hope that long hours in isolation will result in new solutions for the infrastructure vulnerabilities that present a clear and present danger.

We have more than enough webinar apps and backdrop downloads to be going on with.

In the meantime, pass me the soap!

——

Gary Bowerman is Director of Check-in Asia and Co-host of The South East Asia Travel Show. He is the author of The New Chinese Traveler: Business Challenges from the Chinese Travel Revolution.

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