Since 2020 began, we have been witnessing an increased amount of malicious attempts as many threat actors have abused the panic and discomfort of the COVID-19 pandemic to conduct specially crafted cyber crime attacks.

Here are the top 10 interesting cyber statistics and trends on cyber crime that have come from the global pandemic in recent months:

1. Email scams related to COVID-19 surged 667% in March 2020
2. Users are now 3 times more likely to click on pandemic related phishing scams
3. The number of unsecured remote desktop machines rose by more than 40%
4. RDP Brute-force attacks grew 400% in March and April alone
5. Billions of COVID-19 pages can be found on the internet currently
6. Tens of thousands of new COVID-19 related domains are being created daily
7. 90% of newly created COVID-19 domains are scams
8. More than 530,000 zoom accounts are sold on the dark web
9. 2000% increase in malicious files with ‘zoom‘ in the name
10. COVID-19 drives 72% to 105% of a ransomware spike

This is a good reminder that prevention is key. To take a cybersecurity prevention approach, organisations need to start by instilling a culture in which security is everyone’s responsibility. This includes implementing training programs to educate employees about potential threats and ways to avoid putting the organisation at risk. Furthermore, businesses should also implement cybersecurity tools and technologies that identify threats and prevent them from becoming a reality. 

Smarttech247