Cybersecurity Takeaways From the Pandemic and Solutions for 2021

In 2020, Cybersecurity has become more important than ever for businesses all over the world; the COVID-19 pandemic definitely has a huge impact on the overall cybersecurity situation. No one is immune to COVID-19 and cyberattacks alike.

Global lockdowns forced many companies to shift to remote work. Cybercriminals took advantage of vulnerable home networks. Many organizations encountered data breaches at the beginning of the work-from-home shift. For instance:

• 80% of companies reported an increase in cyberattacks in 2020.
• Most of the malware was received from email (94% of cases)
• At the beginning of April 2020, Google reported it was blocking 18 million malware e-mails every day related to COVID-19.
• Between January and April 2020, the attacks on cloud services increased by 630%

Healthcare and financial industries were the most affected, as they deal with huge amounts of personal data. For instance, various research shows that:

• In 2020, 27% of all cyberattacks targeted healthcare and financial sectors
• From the beginning of February to the end of April 2020, attacks against banks rose by 238% (when COVID-19 started spreading).
• Most financial institutions (82%) reported that it is more and more difficult to fight against cybercriminals, as they become more and more sophisticated.

On the flip side, 2020 has definitely been a good year for online retailers. Even though according to surveys, COVID-19 caused big shipping delays for 36% of consumers, the global lockdown made 56% of consumers try out a new retailer during the pandemic period. In addition, of course, this was the biggest holiday season in e-commerce history.

On the other hand, more online sales resulted in more cyberattacks. Of course, the e-commerce platforms have already started adapting to the current situation, but the hackers apparently took advantage especially at the beginning of the lockdown period, launching an unprecedented number of attacks, aiming to steal customer data, and making unauthorized transactions. Such attacks include credit card fraud, malware, phishing attacks, etc.

Even though businesses are trying to adapt to the growing threat from cybercriminals, cybersecurity specialists are not optimistic at all, as their research shows that cybercriminals are changing their way of acting even more, and are not planning to slow down. Here are just some figures and predictions for 2021, presented by Cybersecurity Ventures:

• By 2021, Cybercrime is expected to cost the world $6.1 trillion annually (more than twice compared to 2015), making it the world’s third-largest economy, after the US and China
• The cybersecurity experts predict a cyberattack incident to happen every 11 seconds in 2021 (4 times more than in 2016)
• In 2021, 1st place in the nomination “The Fastest Growing Kind Of Cybercrime” will go to Ransomware.  Worldwide costs caused by such damages are predicted to reach $20 billion (57 times more than in 2015).

Taking into account the aforementioned statistics and predictions, it is obvious that organizations and individuals must completely rethink their cybersecurity approaches and strategies. So what can we all do to combat cybercrime more effectively?

Empower your Employees…with Knowledge

It has been proven that 90% of cyber-attacks are related to human error. Often people take cybersecurity for granted, and most employees are not even aware of cyber-attack types and risks…until it is too late.  Any employee who is not well-informed about cybersecurity can unwillingly fall victim to cyber-attacks, placing the company and clients at risk. That’s why it is crucial to educate the employees, especially today when many of them are working from home.

So start spreading cybersecurity awareness right now: provide your employees with all the necessary information concerning cyber threats and resulting bad consequences and organize cybersecurity training sessions and phishing experiments. Stay in control of the process: make your employees use only secure software and strong passwords, explain to them why they should get the approval of the IT department before installing any software, and why they might have limited access to some data, in some cases.

Protect Proactively

Preventing any damage is always better than repairing it. Cybercriminals will constantly search the weak points in your company’s cybersecurity infrastructure which is why you always have to be ahead of them, detecting an attack before it happens. This way of thinking will help reduce damage and avoid major problems.  Take all the necessary precautions to ensure your data is protected.

Any Backup Plans?

Research shows that many companies don’t have back-up plans and tactics in case of attackers succeed in stealing their data.

• Again, educate your employees: everyone should be aware of their own responsibilities in all possible scenarios.
• Constantly control and monitor all data stored and shared inside and outside your company’s network.
• Remember to back up your own data even if you are putting it in the cloud and expecting it to be safe.

But how do you make sure that the data stored on your computers and cloud services are really protected…even if stolen? The answer is simple. Make it useless for the thieves!

As we have seen, following all the figures listed above, your data is ultra-protected not when it cannot be breached (because it always can), but when it cannot be read by unauthorized users.

There is technology available that renders data useless to unauthorized users and protects your data no matter where it is stored. For example, Cybervore offers a patented breakthrough technology, which combines authentication, AES 265 encryption, and fragmentation. It is called Fragglestorm™- is a cybersecurity software. It is a secure method where data is encrypted, sliced, or split into a defined number of fragments that are replicated, and only the authorized user has access. This offers a way to significantly increase data protection and integrity, and ensure a user’s data privacy across any on-premise device and cloud storage service.