CYBER CRIME
CYBER CRIME PREDICTIONS FOR 2021 N othing could have prepared us for 2020 - a year that demanded a swift and dramatic restructure of corporate operations in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Remote workforces were created overnight, even within industries who never had the experience of managing effective, remote working teams. With limited time and resources to prepare and support home working employees, a makeshift remote setup was thrust upon us. This, consequently, created an opportunity for massive cyber security breaches and a stream of cyber attacks, which can have a devastating impact on businesses when the cost of a data breach averaged between $184,000 and $715,000 for a medium-sized business in 2019. 2020 was an opportunistic year for cyber criminals, who took advantage of a time of uncertainty. In the UK, businesses experienced a 31 per cent increase in cyber crime during the height of the pandemic, with phishing emails up by nearly 700 per cent, preying on what should be a company’s greatest cyber defence asset; their employees. As the new year starts, it’s important all businesses reflect on last year’s challenges overcome, mistakes made and to ask the questions: what have we learnt from this turbulent time? Are cyber attacks getting worse? Why isn’t simple scheduled training enough anymore? And will a more humancentric approach to cyber training make a difference? We also need to think about the
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COUNTER TERROR BUSINESS MAGAZINE | ISSUE 45
new year and make cyber security predictions to stay ahead of relentless cyber criminals.
1. Cyber security risks increasing
We have seen the methods cyber criminals use evolve in sophistication as well as in volume, pushed even further during this pandemic period where staff are working in new ways, often separated from IT help. This increased level of sophistication makes cyber attacks much harder to identify and therefore far more threatening. While phishing, ransomware, malware and DDoS attacks were among the most common methods employed by cyber criminals in 2020, there was also a rise in new methods. This can be seen in attacks on popular collaboration tools like Zoom, Slack and Microsoft 365 and the massive SolarWinds attack; where 18,000 private and government users downloaded a tainted software update, causing the largest hack of the US federal government networks in years. Cyber criminals are always on the lookout for new opportunities and emerging trends, taking advantage of unpatched vulnerabilities before businesses have a chance to ensure staff are adequately trained and their networks are properly secured and protected.
2. Technology has its limits In the Covid-19 era we have all learnt the importance of community and culture, this same lesson has been learnt in cyber
