With the spread of the pandemic, cyber attacks against Italian citizens have also increased. According to the second report on cyber threats in 2020 in Italy - elaborated by theExprivia Cybersecurity Observatory – June is the month in which the highest number of attacks, incidents and privacy violations occurred against companies, individuals and above all the PA.
Out of 40 public information sources, it was found that between the first quarter of the year and the second, the increase was higher than over 250%, with a peak in June (86 attacks). The Coronavirus jackals have found fertile ground above all thanks to the increase in smart working, the greater use of social networks during the pandemic and the reopening of industries immediately after the lockdown.
Beyond the Present in several = 60% of incidents resulted in data theft, an increase over the first quarter of Present in several = 361%, outnumbering both privacy violations (11%) and money losses (7%). The risk for video surveillance systems and IoT devices is also high, targeted by hackers, who already in the first quarter developed the powerful and dangerous attack with the MIRAI malware.
Furthermore, the Exprivia report shows that in the second quarter in our country they grew by 700% hacktivist attacks, real hacker-style digital action practices, often linked to international campaigns on highly topical issues (such as "black-lives-matter" and "revenge-porn").
You also need to pay attention to phishing techniques and social engineering (increased by over 307% compared to the first quarter), aimed at deceiving the user in order to obtain financial data or access codes to the services to which he has subscribed.
Over 30% of cases, the method of cyber attack remains unknown, highlighting the need to develop more secure and adequate protection systems. Instead, about 17% of the attacks occurred through malware, malicious software or computer programs, which have found the best way to attract users' attention in the Coronavirus. As the “Corona Antivurs” or “Covid 9 Antivirus”, a malware that allows cybercriminals to enter the victim's PC to spy on its contents, steal information or use it for other attacks.
Or ransomware “CovidLock”, a type of malware that renders a system unusable and demands the payment of a ransom in order to restore it, which has targeted Android systems when trying to download an application to get updates on the spread of the pandemic.
Regardless of the modality, these cyber attacks try to take advantage of the emotional and psychological instability of Italians, but above all from a "widespread lack of digital culture and the inadequacy with which companies and public bodies protect sensitive data and IT systems". as pointed out by Domenico Raguseo, Exprivia Cybersecurity Director.
