The coronavirus pandemic has forced digitalization, pushing back the adoption of technologies both in the public sector and among companies that have had to relocate much of their workforce to work from home.
This was the ideal context that the hackers took advantage of. Cyber attacks have increased substantially in 2020, and this year there is already an increase compared to last year.
Data showing this increase in online crime is taken from the 14th edition of the Verizon Report, Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR).
Year of the Hackers. Cyber attacks have multiplied in 2021
The report looked at 5,258 confirmed data breaches, a clear increase from last year, when the cumulative number was 3,950.
According to DBIR, "this increase has been in line with our expectations, given the initial wave of phishing attacks and scams related to the COVID-19 virus, as more and more people migrate to a global work from home system." .
Companies are more vulnerable, the report said. Cybersecurity experts looked at 12 different industries, concluding that they all face online security challenges.
"As the number of companies transferring various business-critical functions to the cloud continues to grow, their operations may be exposed to more potential threats as malicious campaigners seek to exploit human vulnerabilities and take advantage of increased dependence on digital infrastructure." , Tami Erwin, CEO of Verizon Business, said in a press release.
Public administration is not exempt from cyber attacks either. The nature of the most frequent attacks in this case is social engineering; they were behind 69% of data breaches.
83 organizations from around the world contributed to this report.
Colonial Pipeline - the latest cyber attack
One of the cyber attacks that has recently attracted global attention has targeted the American company Colonial Pipeline.
Behind the attack are Darkside hackers, who federal authorities believe have originated in Eastern Europe.
Colonial Pipeline, the company that operates pipelines for gasoline, aircraft fuel and other refined petroleum products, has shut down pipeline operations after discovering piracy.
This was a ransomware attack, in which victims generally pay to recover their data.
Eventually, the situation was remedied, but the damage was significant, with the attack causing a fuel crisis on the US East Coast.