Are you concerned about where cybersecurity stands in this Covid-19 hit situation? You may be wanting to know some figures about cybersecurity and cyber attacks considering your business as most of you are operating remotely!

Cyber attacks are ever-evolving with cybercriminals coming up with innovative game plans to penetrate every vulnerable IT infrastructure. The Covid-19 pandemic situation has just added to this vulnerability and spiked the cases of cyber attacks and data theft globally. 

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Organizations adopting a remote working set-up have been attributed to these ever-increasing cyber attacks. Let’s walk through some staggering statistics of how the cyber world has been hit hard during the Covid-19 pandemic in Q2 2020.

According to BusinessLine, The Hindu report:

1. The detection of pandemic-related cyber attacks grew by a massive 605% in Q2 2020.
2. Cyber threat detection in Science and Technology has increased by 91%.
3. Cybersecurity incidents also increased by 10% in the Manufacturing sector.
4. Attacks on cloud service users reached nearly 7.5 million in the second quarter, given the fact that cloud services are popular with people working from home.
5. Publicly disclosed security incidents increased by 22% in Q2 2020, out of which:
   • 35% were malware attacks
   • 17% were account hijacking, and 
   • 9% were targeted attacks
6. On average, this quarter observed 419 new threats per minute with new malware samples increasing by 11.5%
7. Mobile malware spiked 15% due to the surge in the use of Android Mobby Adware.
8. A significant rise of 103% has been reported in Microsoft Office Malware.
9. A new innovative threat, PowerShell malware attacks rose by 117% in Q2 2020.
10. Due to the increase in Gafgyt and Mirai’s Internet of Things activity, the Linux malware attack rose by 22%.

What are the Prime Reasons Behind Cyber Attacks?

There are different types of methods in cyber attacks that are followed by cyber criminals globally to hack computer systems. Likewise, there are varied reasons and purposes behind these attacks. The prime reasons behind cyber attacks can be categorized into 6 types which we have mentioned below:

• Making a Political or Social Point: Hackers can attack everything from governments, politicians, society, and big brand companies to current affairs to vent their anger or criticism on them. If they disagree with them, they prefer to strike their targets by crashing their websites. Making a political or social point is the reason behind such attacks. 
• Intellectual Challenge: This community of individuals, is quite similar to radical hackers. They conduct cyber attacks for the attention and admiration of peers by means of challenging network security.
• Organizational Competition: Organizational competition is one of the major reasons why DDoS attacks are being used as a competitive business tool. Cyber attackers tend to hit business competitors by participating in big events, while some of these attackers are motivated to shut down the complete online business of the competitors for months. In either case, the main idea is to cause disruption in the technical structure and damage the reputation.
• Financial Gain: One of the biggest reasons to attack is to gain a financial advantage from an organization. Almost three-quarters of all cyber attacks are conducted to gain financially through stealing money directly from financial accounts, stealing credit card information, demanding ransom, etc. 
• Cyber Warfare: To gain a strategic position over an enemy country, state-sponsored cyber attacks are conducted. This is a means of suppressing government critics and internal opposition. This is considered a cyberwar between states to undermine important financial, health, and infrastructure services. Tech-savvy professionals are appointed to cause well-planned cyber attacks on government funds.

How to Protect Your Organization Against Cyber Attacks?

• Security Assessment: It is important to conduct security assessments from time to time in your organization. The assessment actually helps in establishing a baseline and closing existing vulnerabilities. 
• Block Email Phishing: 90% of data breaches and compromises are caused by phishing attacks. Therefore, secure your organization by blocking phishing emails. Always avoid clicking or downloading suspicious email attachments to stop phishing attacks. 
• Enable Multi-Factor Authentication: It adds an extra layer of security so that your data stays safe even when your password is hacked.
• System Updates: Keep your operating system and software always updated with the latest security patches and versions for better security.
• Physical Security: Often overlooked by organizations, maintaining physical security is very important. Because unattended IT devices or servers, if accessed by someone other than an authorized person, may cause data theft or cyber attacks later on.
• Implement Encryption: To secure your organization against cyber attacks, you must keep all the data and devices encrypted.
• Cyber Insurance: Cyber insurance can protect you from any financial loss caused by cyber attacks. It will help you save your income and business with cyber damage and recovery policies against any cyber security incident.
• Cyber Security Awareness Training: Educate every worker in the organization on cybersecurity awareness. Train your employees with a cyber security awareness training tool to help them make smart cyber security choices.       

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