COVID-19 continues to cause problems in both the real and virtual worlds, as hackers take advantage of fears and concerns over its spread to trick people with scam and phishing emails, or to unleash ransomware attacks. According to an article in ZDNET, the UK’s National Cyber Security Center has attempted to quantify the magnitude of this issue, noting in its Annual Review of 2020 that the roughly a third of the cyber incidents the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)were asked to assist in resolving were related to the coronavirus.
Speaking of the effects of the coronavirus on cybersecurity, Lindy Cameron, CEO of the NCSC, says, “The second half of the year for us, as it has for everyone else, has been dominated by the response to COVID.”
In the UK, the NCSC has devoted much of their efforts to assisting the NGS in building up their cyber defenses to reduce their exposure to these attacks. “What we’ve done as an organisation is really pivot towards the health sector to try and give them the best support we can in thinking about their cyber defence to let them focus on responding to the pandemic,” Cameron told ZDNET. This effort has included assisting front-line health organizations in rolling out Active Cyber Defense services.
Says Jeremy Fleming, director of GCHQ, to ZDNET, “The expertise of the NCSC, as part of GCHQ, has been invaluable in keeping the country safe: enabling us to defend our democracy, counter high levels of malicious state and criminal activity, and protect against those who have tried to exploit the pandemic,”
Source:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/cybersecurity-one-in-three-attacks-are-coronavirus-related/
