Office Hours: Webroot and COVID-19 August 4, 2020

  • 28 July 2020
  • 7 replies
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Hello Webroot Community, 

I wanted to create a space for us to come together and discuss Webroot and COVID-19.

Consider this our office hours. 

In case you might have missed it, we created a page here where we’ll keep a running list of articles, blog posts, and other pieces of content about our COVID-19 response.

If you have specific questions on what we’re doing as a company during the pandemic and our tips for how you can stay cyber resilient in these uncertain times. 

Please add your questions below or join us Tuesday, August 4, 2020, at 1:00 PM - 1:30 PM MT.


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Userlevel 7
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Hello, again Webroot Community! I hope you're having a good start to the week. 

This is where you can ask your COVID and Webroot related questions and we’ll do our best to answer them. 

Today, @GeorgeA will be helping us answer your questions. 

We’ll get started in just a minute. 

Here are your questions: 

Have you found more people falling for scams since working for home? Do you think it is because they cant check with their colleagues as easy or increased frequency or other reason? - Jason C. 

How long do you expect people to be working from home? - Christopher H. 

How many of you have returned from work-from-home, and then had a second work-from-home due to a surge, or yourself/a colleague being exposed to COVID? - Doug T.

How has changed things for you now that we are months into the pandemic? Nathan H.

Is Webroot looking into offering a VPN client product? - Eric M. 

 

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Have you found more people falling for scams since working for home? Do you think it is because they can’t check with their colleagues as easy or increased frequency or other reason? Jason C. 

We’ve seen phishing scams grow enormously in use during this WFH home period and in their sophistication. Coincidentally I just added a comment to LinkedIn and Twitter today on this as there are many types of phishing.

The LinkedIn link is: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6696446908086415360/

I’d agree not having someone to ask will make spotting phishing more difficult but if they are trained then they can check the URL and are cyber aware then phishing can be stopped. It’s the spear phishing and use of personal information that throws people off whether in an email, on the phone or SMS. 

We know phishing in all forms works but I cannot give you definitive on how much of an uplift in victims ,though we could look at those we’ve stopped with  Real-Time Anti-Phishing  in the endpoint and  report back, I’ll  try tad get some  figures added later.

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How long do you expect people to be working from home? Christopher H. 

Until people feel safe to return to work and trust others to be vigilant in avoiding infection.

And that to me says very few if any cases in your locality and/or effective vaccination and treatments.

Not everyone has the same risk when getting it either, so those most at risk  (like me) will  try to seriously avoid ever getting it, and feel threatened until there is a proven protection.

Employer policies will also come into play. There are lots of factors so not an easy answer to given people’s  current  behaviors I think a while yet, unfortunately.

 

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How many of you have returned from work-from-home, and then had a second work-from-home due to a surge, or yourself/a colleague being exposed to COVID? Doug T.

We have not experienced that at Webroot as even though our offices are open no one is obliged to consider returning to work until  next month in September. At that time it will be reviewed again. Given my local hospital here in CO is seeing about 2 new cases per day I think CO overall  is still high risk, so unless things improve it will probably be extended.

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Is Webroot looking into offering a VPN client product? Eric M.

We currently offer a Consumer VPN product but not yet a Business VPN. The Consumer solution is called WiFi security and is available here:

https://www.webroot.com/us/en/home/products/vpn-wifi-security

We think that most business firewalls provide VPN Clients hence we have not pursued a business VPN yet!

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How have things changed for you now that we are months into the pandemic? Nathan H.

A lot. From the Webroot side it’s very much business as unusual.  From the security perspective we are as usual trying to get better defenses and protection in place and keep releasing  updates and improvements as per normal. 

We have more meetings, as communications need to be great, and some try to hold  responsible social distancing meetings in person occasionally too. 

But otherwise it’s all change socially and I know  all wish to get back to a more office orientated working life.

Other changes are in us trying to help our Clients out and be more flexible and responsive and listen even more. I know our Customer Success Team try hard to help. 

Right now is normally a quieter business period but because few are taking vacations its actually busier than normal right now.

Userlevel 7
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That’s going to do it for our Office Hours today. 

Thanks again to @GeorgeA for answering your questions and spending a little time with us. 

If anyone has any additional questions, be sure to stop by next Tuesday, August 11 at 1:00 PM MT. or add your questions here and we’ll do our best to answer all of them.

Until next week, stay resilient!