COVID-19’s Impact on Cyber Threat Activity

A cybersecurity crisis emerged as a result of the 2020 global health crisis as cybercriminals posed an increased threat to the safety of individuals and organizations. Experts are seeing an uptick in cyber threat activity as workforces continue to move to the digital landscape.

Increased Individual Attacks

In 2020, cybercriminals capitalized on fear surrounding the pandemic by producing COVID-19-related scams that trick victims into opening malicious links and attachments. Cybercriminals create fake COVID-19-related content, such as local and regional health updates, or knowledge of cures and treatments. The pandemic has created an opportunity for cybercriminals to exploit human curiosity and concern, which has led to an increase in cyberattack victims.

There’s also been an increase in phishing scam campaigns where cyber threat actors craft convincing copies of government websites and official correspondence. These attacks prey upon populations who are anxious and less likely to be skeptical of emails and other links regarding COVID-19.

Increased Organizational Attacks

As cybercriminals continue to exploit human vulnerability and individual fears surrounding COVID-19, the sudden increase in organizations with employees working from home has allowed cybercriminals to capitalize on cloud-based technologies that didn’t exist before. Research has found that companies became less secure in 2020 due to hastily deployed remote work solutions.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security predicts that ransomware will continue to target health care and medical research facilities as the global health sector continues to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Cybercriminals taking advantage of the health crisis have the ability to jeopardize patient outcomes and public health efforts.

Another ransomware trend that emerged in 2020 is known as “double extortion,” where cybercriminals maximize their chance of a profit by threatening additional abuse of the compromised data, including auctioning or selling it.

It’s more important than ever that organizations take a proactive approach to their cybersecurity measures as well as educate employees on the risks of cyber threat activity.

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