When a natural disaster or other major emergency occurs, your first priority is protecting your people and getting your business back up and running.
Unfortunately, cybercriminals know that disasters create confusion, urgency, and distractions. While businesses are focused on recovery, attackers often see an opportunity to launch phishing campaigns, exploit security gaps, and take advantage of weakened defenses.
Preparing for disasters isn’t just about recovering from physical damage—it’s also about protecting your business from the cyber threats that often follow.
Why Cyberattacks Increase During Disasters
Disasters create conditions that make businesses more vulnerable. Employees are under stress, routines change, and technology systems may not be operating normally. Cybercriminals take advantage of these situations in several ways.
1. Reduced Attention to Cybersecurity
During an emergency, IT staff and business leaders are naturally focused on restoring operations.
Routine software updates, security monitoring, and system maintenance may be delayed, creating opportunities for attackers to exploit known vulnerabilities.
Maintaining basic cybersecurity practices—even during a crisis—helps reduce this risk.
2. Exploiting Fear and Urgency
Attackers frequently send phishing emails and fake messages related to current disasters.
These messages may claim to be from insurance companies, utility providers, government agencies, shipping companies, or disaster relief organizations. Their goal is to create urgency so recipients act before thinking.
Employees should always verify unexpected requests before clicking links, opening attachments, or sharing sensitive information.
3. Taking Advantage of Damaged Systems
Disasters can disrupt internet connections, damage hardware, and interrupt normal business operations.
Without reliable backups and a tested disaster recovery plan, recovering from both the disaster and a cyberattack becomes significantly more difficult.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) planning helps ensure your organization can recover safely and efficiently.
4. Impersonating Trusted Organizations
Cybercriminals often pretend to be trusted organizations during emergencies.
Fraudulent emails, text messages, websites, and phone calls may appear to come from government agencies, charities, insurance companies, or vendors.
Whenever possible, employees should verify requests by contacting the organization directly using a trusted phone number or website rather than responding to the message itself.
Preparing Before Disaster Strikes
The best time to strengthen your cybersecurity is before an emergency occurs.
Businesses should consider:
- Maintaining secure, tested backups.
- Keeping systems updated.
- Providing regular security awareness training.
- Using multi-factor authentication (MFA).
- Developing and testing a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plan.
- Monitoring systems for suspicious activity.
Preparation helps reduce both operational downtime and cybersecurity risk when unexpected events occur.
Build a More Resilient Business
Disasters are stressful enough without adding a cyberattack to the situation.
By combining disaster preparedness with strong cybersecurity practices, your business can recover more quickly while reducing opportunities for cybercriminals to take advantage of an already difficult situation.
At Cornerstone IT Professionals, we help businesses strengthen both their cybersecurity and disaster recovery strategies so they’re prepared for whatever comes next.