A year ago, with the beginning of the restrictions and confinements due to COVID-19, we published an article warning of the dangers of hoaxes, fake news and malware that take advantage of this situation to attack companies and individuals.
A year later, we continually wash our hands, wear the mask in public spaces all day and have become accustomed to maintaining social distance. Also, it seems to us the most normal to hold meetings by videoconference and work from home regularly.
But we cannot let our guard down.
Just as if we relax the measures with respect to COVID there may be outbreaks and new waves, if we become overconfident in the cybernetic field and we are not alert, we can be victims of new attacks, since these continue to grow continuously without giving us respite.
In recent weeks, new cases of fraud, attacks and malware infections continue to come to light:
- In Spain, the Ryuk ransomware paralyzed the systems of the State Public Employment Service in March.
- And the same month, the REvil group has infected the systems of the technology multinational ACER with another ransomware and demands a ransom of 50 million dollars.
During the last year, ransomware attacks have grown by 150% according to Group-IB, the origin of many of them being the actions of people who, due to ignorance or carelessness, access a malicious site or open an attachment included in a phishing message.
Let’s put a stop to cyber threats: let’s learn how our enemies act and become human firewalls.
See the awareness calendar for 2021 from the European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO):
