The cybersecurity company Bitdefender has released its report on all the cyber threats that have occurred in the first half of 2020 . In these first six months of the year, we have had the coronavirus as a catalyst for the main attacks by cybercriminals , since the targets have been small and medium-sized companies because they do not usually have the resources and security of the largest, Therefore, attacks such as ransomware increased by up to 7 times compared to 2019.
This Bitdefender report analyzes the growth and trends of the cybersecurity sector throughout Europe, including Spain, so that we can see a global vision of all the cyber threats that we have above, in order to mitigate them in the best possible way. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this semester has changed radically compared to the other years, and even cybercriminals have been able to hone their skills.
Due to all the chaos that coronavirus has caused around the world, cybercriminals have focused on increasing scams, phishing, and malware across all known platforms and vectors. According to Bitdefender, between the months of May and June it was determined that an average of 60% of all emails received were fraudulent. Cybercriminals have used all tactics to try to deceive their victims, both with fundraising to fight COVID-19 and bogus offers.
A characteristic of the attacks by these cybercriminals is that they have been dynamically adapting according to the spread of the coronavirus, causing their strategies and related messages to change rapidly, with the aim of being more efficient and that more people “fall” in their trap.
Threats against Windows operating systems
Windows follows the operating system where cybercriminals have focused the most, the most common threats are ransomware, fileless malware, cryptojacking, banking Trojans and also exploits. The most used during this pandemic have been Emotet, Agent Testla2, TrickBot3 and Dridex, both for their effectiveness, more than demonstrated over time, as well as for their updates to new functionalities, which have made detection by antivirus more complicated. and antimalware.
Ransomware on this platform increased by 700% , now that we are telecommuting, this is ideal for cybercriminals because normally the PCs of workers are not as protected as those of companies, so it is easier for them to become infected. Cryptojacking increased “only” 20% and exploits increased 400% compared to last year. Although at first ransomware was the most used, as of April they switched to banking Trojans.
We recommend you read our tutorial on how to protect your PC from email ransomware .
Threats against Android
Android malware has also been present in this crisis, especially towards applications such as Zoom, one of the most used applications for videoconferencing, and which has been targeted by all cybercriminals. In the case of Android, we have aggressive adware, apps on Google Play with banking Trojans, malware that sends SMS and more. It was from March that all Android malware started to increase, because employees started working remotely and were more susceptible to being attacked.
We recommend you read our tutorial on security in Android apps to be safe with our smartphone and tablet.
Spam in the era of coronavirus and the IoT
According to Bitdefender, 40% of emails related to COVID-19 are SPAM, cybercriminals use these attacks to scam and collect confidential information from users, therefore, it is best to delete these emails as soon as possible. Spammers have improved their techniques to evade spam filters and analysis systems, thus reaching users’ inboxes to be read. In Spain, the month with the most spam related to COVID-19 was in April, which coincides with the worst moment of the pandemic. We recommend you read our tutorial on AnonAddy to protect ourselves from spam .
As for attacks on IoT devices, they increased by 46% in just six months, we must bear in mind that this type of device must also be protected, since every day we use them more in our day to day life. We recommend reading our tutorial on how to protect IoT devices from attackers .