Home CioAxis Coronavirus-related cyberattacks on the rise

Coronavirus-related cyberattacks on the rise

by CIO AXIS

Cybersecurity firm Check Point has announced findings from a new survey, conducted by Dimensional Research, examining the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on enterprise security.

The findings show that the rapid changes to enterprise working practices, and broader concerns about the pandemic, are both being exploited by cybercriminals as they step up their attacks, generating a raft of new challenges for security professionals.

Key findings from the survey of 411 IT and security professionals globally are:

Coronavirus related attacks ramp up – 71% of security professionals reported an increase in security threats or attacks since the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak. The leading threat cited was phishing attempts (cited by 55% or respondents), followed by malicious websites claiming to offer information or advice about the pandemic (32%), followed by increases in malware (28%) and ransomware (19%).

• Challenges of managing remote working increase – 95% of respondents said they are facing added IT security challenges due to the spread of the Coronavirus. The three leading challenges were provision of secure remote access for employees (cited by 56%), the need for remote access scalable solutions (55%) and employees working from home were using shadow IT solutions – untested software, tools and services (47%).

• Security concerns over the coming months –61% of respondents were concerned about the security risks of having to make rapid changes to enable remote working, and 55% felt that remote access security needed improving. 49% are concerned about the need to scale-up endpoint security.

“Cyber criminals will always seek to capitalize on the latest trends to try and boost the success rates of attacks, and the coronavirus pandemic has created a perfect storm of a global news event together with dramatic changes in working practices and the technologies used by organizations. This has meant a significant increase in the attack surface of many organizations, which is compromising their security postures,” said Rafi Kretchmer, Head of Product Marketing at Check Point.

“To ensure security and business continuity in this rapidly evolving situation, organizations need to protect themselves with a holistic, end-to-end security architecture. This means ensuring accessible and reliable connections between corporate networks and remote devices 24/7, promoting collaboration and productivity between teams, networks and offices, and deploying robust protection against advanced threats and cybercrime techniques at all points on the enterprise network fabric,” he added.

Recommended for You

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Close Read More

See Ads