Federal Bureau of Investigation widely known as FBI has made it official that it is witnessing a spike in cyberattacks, especially on remote workers who are struggling to keep their critical office functions alive during the COVID 19 pandemic.
Speaking at the virtual Aspen Institute event, Tonya Ugoretz, the Deputy Assistant Director shared some insights on what the Internet Crime Compliant Center of FBI was witnessing currently. Tonya added that the center was receiving complaints related to cyber fraud between 3000 to 4000 on a daily note which is alarming and is far above the regular average count of 600-800 per day.
Cyber crooks are seen setting up fake websites in the name of information sharing related to COVID 19 and are seen asking for personal information from the traffic visiting them, paving way for a bigger fraud such as Phishing- a popular method in the cyberattack chain nowadays proving lucrative for cybercriminals.
And as work from home employees are increasingly using their personal and corporate devices for resource sharing, there is a threat that hackers might use these endpoints as vulnerable targets to enter into corporate networks.
FBI has also observed that in the first quarter of this year 2020, there has been a surge in nation-state cryptojacking attacks where hackers are seen targeting endpoints and stealing computing resources to mine cryptocurrency such as BTC.
Healthcare, financial sector, manufacturing units, and government entities are said to be acting as prime targets for cybercriminals as attacks on these firms are proving profitable for hackers.
US law enforcement agency suggests that the only way to protect organizational resources from threats is by managing and monitoring privilege access and installing automated cyber response solutions which not only helps in detecting attacks but also assists in mitigating them before time.
