Most firms see rise in cyberattacks during pandemic: Survey

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New Delhi, April 7 (IANS) Most organisations have seen a rise in security threats and attacks during the coronavirus pandemic, a new survey by cybersecurity firm Check Point said on Tuesday.

While 71 per cent of those IT and security professionals who were surveyed reported an increase in security threats or attacks, 61 per cent of respondents said they were concerned about security risks of changes made to enable remote work.

Phishing attempts (55 per cent) and websites claiming helpful information on coronavirus (32 per cent) have emerged as the leading threats to the organisations, the respondents said.

In phishing attacks, a bad actor steals sensitive information by tricking people to open an email, instant message, or text message containing malicious links or attachments.

The findings showed 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.

"Cybercriminals will always seek to capitalise 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 organisations," said Rafi Kretchmer Check Point's Head of Product Marketing.

"This has meant a significant increase in the attack surface of many organizations, which is compromising their security postures. To ensure security and business continuity in this rapidly evolving situation, organizations need to protect themselves with a holistic, end-to-end security architecture," Kretchmer added.

The survey was conducted in a bid to examine the severity of impact coronavirus has had on enterprise security. It involved 411 IT and security professions -- all from organisations over 500 people.

As many enterprises rely on Zoom to facilitate their employees working from home, Check Point recently saw a spike in the number of "Zoom" domains registered and spotted malicious "Zoom" files targeting people working from home.

Check Point documented 1,700 new "Zoom" domains registered since the advent of pandemic, 25 per cent of which were registered in the past week days, and has deemed 70 domains as suspicious.

--IANS

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