An increase in cyberattacks by criminals taking advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic has introduced new structural and operational risks, with insurance, finance and retail sectors the most targeted sectors in South Africa, says information technology service multinational Dimension Data Security managing executive Tony Walt in a statement.
The most common attacks in South Africa were Web-application attacks (66%) and application-specific attacks (27%). In the Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea) regions, reconnaissance activity, where an intruder secretly gathers information about systems for a future attack, was the most common threat (40% of all hostile attacks), the '2020 Global Threat Intelligence Report', released on June 9, and commissioned by Dimension Data's international parent company NTT showed.
As more businesses embrace working from home, they rely on technology to collaborate with each other and access remote networks. They also rely more on Web applications like customer portals and retail sites as they shift their channel strategies from face-to-face to online. These kinds of changes increase an organisation’s vulnerability to cyberattacks, says Walt.
"The current global crisis has shown us that cybercriminals will always take advantage of any situation and organisations must be ready for anything. We are already seeing an increased number of ransomware attacks on healthcare organisations and we expect this to get worse before it gets better," says NTT Security division president and CEO Matthew Gyde.
"It is critical to have security that enables your business by ensuring its cyber-resilience and maximising the effectiveness of secure-by-design initiatives."
Attackers are becoming more innovative, using artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as investing in automation of attacks, he adds.
"Attackers are weaponising Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Botnets such as Mirai, IoTroop and Echobot have advanced in automation, improving their propagation capabilities. Mirai and IoTroop are known for spreading through IoT attacks."
Additionally, old vulnerabilities remain a target, with many attackers targeting organisations that have not patched their systems, says Gyde.
By focusing too much on building-up layers of protection for networks and systems to keep intruders out, organisations have allowed cyber-adversaries to set the pace.
“Covid-19 has been a stark illustration to many businesses how cunning cyberattackers will use any entry point they can to exploit a vulnerability. Businesses can no longer just respond to a security event, they need to be able to anticipate and prevent it in all aspects of their operations, including technology, people and controls,” says Walt.
“This is what cyber-resilience is all about. Rather than viewing cybersecurity as solely a protective layer over a business’s operations, secure-by-design means including security as a key and conscious deciding-factor in the design of any end-to-end business solution and having intelligence to help the business identify the threat earlier to respond, recover and return back to business as usual much more quickly,” he concludes.