Trend Micro stopped an unbelievable 8,8 million COVID-19 attacks in the first half of the year, 1,3 million of them in Germany alone. In total, Trend Micro stops 27,8 billion threats worldwide, with 93 percent of attacks being based on email.
Trend Micro publishes its annual semi-annual report, which shows that COVID-19-related attacks were the largest cyber security risk in the first half of the year. In just six months, Trend Micro blocked 8,8 million threats related to the corona pandemic worldwide, of which almost 1,3 million (14,6 percent) were in Germany. Almost 92 percent of these attacks were spam emails.
Cyber criminals are using global interest in the Covid-19 pandemic to focus their attacks on it. The risk for companies has also been exacerbated by security gaps that have arisen from working from home.
“IT leaders should adapt their security strategy”
"As expected, the pandemic did not slow down the cybercriminals in the first half of 2020," explains Richard Werner, Business Consultant at Trend Micro. These hackers are nothing more than ordinary criminals who don't even shy away from targeting healthcare facilities during a pandemic. Successful attacks showed that often inflexible security measures were overwhelmed by sudden necessities such as home office. IT managers should adapt their security strategy in order to be able to react more flexibly to changing requirements and current threats. "
A total of 27,8 billion cyber threats stopped
Overall, Trend Micro prevented 2020 billion cyber threats in the first half of 27,8, 93 percent of which were spread via email. Business Email Compromise (BEC, also CEO fraud or boss scam) detections have increased by 2019 percent since the second half of 19, in part because fraudsters are trying to get out of the increased use of the home office and a therefore potentially greater susceptibility to social engineering to capitalize on.
Ransomware remains a fixture for cyber criminals. Although the number of ransomware attacks detected decreased in the first half of the year, Trend Micro recorded a 45 percent increase in new ransomware families compared to the same period last year.
Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) & Vulnerability Advisories
Companies around the world have also suffered a significant increase in the number of newly discovered vulnerabilities. Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) released a total of 786 vulnerability advisories, up 74 percent from the second half of 2019. Some of these came as part of Microsoft Patch Tuesday updates, which so far in 2020 have fixed an average of 103 CVEs per month - including the largest number of patches ever released in a single month (129) in June.
Trend Micro also observed a 2019 percent increase in vulnerabilities discovered in industrial control systems (ICS) compared to the first half of 16. These can be a major challenge for operators of smart factories and other IIoT environments.
Gartner recommends refining security monitoring functions
In order to effectively protect widely distributed corporate networks, Gartner recommends that companies refine their security monitoring functions and adapt them to the changed conditions caused by increased remote and mobile work. The analysts particularly point out changing patterns of network traffic as well as data and system access vectors. Trend Micro XDR helps customers protect themselves holistically by correlating security events across the IT environment. Trend Micro also offers the full report Securing the Pandemic-Disrupted Workplace: Trend Micro 2020 Midyear Cybersecurity Report online,
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