If you think 2020 was bad when it came to cyber crime, a new report suggests that 2021 could be even worse.
There has been a major uptick in hack attacks, phishing schemes and other digital crimes as cyber criminals have leveraged the coronavirus for their own nefarious needs.
However, new research from cybersecurity unicorn Acronis suggests that 2021 could be even worse. The company, which secured its unicorn status after bagging a $147m funding round in 2019, has based its Acronis Cyberthreats Report 2020 on attack and threat data collected from its global network of Acronis Cyber Protection Operations Centers.
The research warns that next year will see cyber criminals grow even bolder than before whilst pivoting their attacks from data encryption to data exfiltration, according to Backend News.
In other words, while ransomware attacks may still be the most popular schemes cyber criminals embark on, they are actively stealing proprietary data before encrypting it.
And things may get worse, with the report predicting that attacks against remote workers will increase with the volume of attacks expected to increase next year.
“More than any year in recent memory, 2020 posed a tremendous number of challenges to IT professionals, organisations, and the service providers who support them,” said Stas Protassov, co-founder and technology president at Acronis.
“What we’ve seen is how quickly bad actors are adjusting their attacks to the new IT landscape. By analysing the activity, attacks, and trends we’ve detected and clearly presenting our findings, we hope to empower our partners and help the IT community at large prepare for the threats on the horizon.”
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