While the world has been focused on managing the healthcare, economic and social consequences of the novel Coronavirus, a war has been quietly raging as cybercriminals leverage the crisis to escalate their activities. According to a new Mimecast report entitled 100 Days of Coronavirus that tracks cybercrime activity since the start of the Coronavirus outbreak, the volume of malicious and opportunistic cybercrime across all types of cybercrime has increased significantly by 33% in the period January to March 2020.
The report provides a clear picture of how malicious actors are exploiting opportunities and provides a detailed analysis of all the trends across various regions, seen by the Mimecast Threat Intelligence team.
The new report has found that, in the period January to March 2020, monthly volumes of: spam and opportunistic cybercrime detections increased by 26.3%; impersonation fraud detections increased by 30.3%; malware detections increased by 35.16% and blocking of URL clicks increased by 55.8%, meaning people are more likely now to click on unsafe links than before the outbreak.
Carl Wearn, Head of E-Crime at Mimecast, said: “Many employees that suddenly find themselves working from home are not sufficiently equipped or aware of cyberthreats and may put their organisations at risk by engaging in unsafe behaviour.”
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