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Oman sees 30% drop in COVID-19 cyberattacks to 640 in Q3 2020

Oman sees 30% drop in COVID-19 cyberattacks to 640 in Q3 2020

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Oman has seen an impressive 30% drop in the number of COVID-19-related cyberattacks from 920 in Q2 2020 to 640 in Q3 2020, according to new research from Trend Micro Incorporated, a cloud security vendor.

In Q3 2020, Oman’s COVID-19 related cyberattacks included: 610 email spam attacks, down 27% from 833 in Q2 2020; 29 malicious URL hits, down 67% from 87 in Q2 2020 and one malware detection, up from 0 in Q2 2020.

“Oman’s 30% decrease in COVID-19 related cyberattacks is an impressive signal that Oman’s IT decision-makers are taking pandemic-related attacks seriously,” said Assad Arabi, Managing Director – Gulf Cluster, Trend Micro. “We are seeing Oman’s organisations deploy the right cybersecurity solutions and processes to enable secure remote work and work from home environments.”

During Q3 2020, the 14 countries of the MENA region experienced a total of 125,219 COVID-19 related cyberattacks, including 101,188 email spam attacks, 23,696 malicious URL hits and 335 malware detections, according to Trend Micro’s Smart Protection Network.

MENA’s COVID-19 attacks were down by 54%, with a 29% decrease in email spam attacks, an 82% decrease in malicious URL hits, but a 4.5-fold increase in malware detections.

“While Oman and the Middle East are beginning to emerge from the pandemic, organisations must continue to protect their employees and malicious URLs and files that are embedded with malware,” added Arabi. “One of the biggest concerns is about phishing emails related to COVID-19 health and safety measures or career updates, which could also expose sensitive corporate data to hackers.”

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