With the upsurge in cybercrime as coronavirus continues to spread like a bushfire, retail and manufacturing companies are witnessing most attacks. In a report released two days ago by an Information Security firm called Mimecast, it is clear that cybercrime has increased rapidly during the first 14 weeks of the pandemic. For example, the firm recorded an increase of 26.3% spam detections and 35.16% increase in malware circulation.
We shared about major information disclosures that have been disclosed recently in our last post. More international organizations and huge multi-national corporations have also been targeted in a range of other attacks.
The WHO
Reuters exclusively reported that “elite” cybercriminals attempted to break into the World Health Organization earlier this month. A senior agency official said there was more than two-fold increase in cyberattacks amid the spread of Covid-19. The WHO Chief Information Security Officer warned that the hackers’ identities are unknown and the effort did not succeed. But he cautioned that hacking attempts against the agency and its partners have surged as they struggle to contain the coronavirus.
Microsoft
The hacker individual or group known as Shiny Hunters, who was also responsible for the Tokopedia data leak, contacted Bleeping Computer with proof that over 500GB of data was stolen from Microsoft’s GitHub account. An anonymous Microsoft employee has since confirmed that the breach was confirmed as legitimate. Microsoft has also told BleepingComputer that they are “aware of these claims and are investigating.”
Following his subsequent confirmation of the breach, Rafael Rivera, an engineer at Microsoft, tweeted that “And by ~500GB, it’s really ~63.2GB extracted. Not sure where that number came from.”
Cognizant
IT services giant Cognizant succumbed badly to the Maze ransomware in April. In an earnings call, Karen McLoughlin, Cognizant Chief Financial Officer said, “While we anticipate that the revenue impact related to this issue will be largely resolved by the middle of the quarter, we do anticipate the revenue and corresponding margin impact to be in the range of $50 million to $70 million for the quarter.”
The Toll Group
Australian logistics conglomerate’s IT systems were severely impacted by the MailTo ransomware in February.
Just a few days ago on 5th May, Toll Group succumbed to another ransomware, this time – Nefilim.
As large corporations are being attacked from all sides, small businesses will not be spared either. Over the next few days, we will take a look at the trends of cyber attacks that different countries are experiencing.