Cyberattacks in the U.S. Hit an All-Time High due to Covid-19, Says Black Hat Report.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, cybersecurity experts suspect a rise in cyberattacks and cybercrimes, says a survey by Black Hat earlier this week. Around 275 cybersecurity professionals (respondents in the study) have expressed concerns about potential breaches in the U.S. infrastructure and the I.T. industry. More than 90% of these experts believe that due to coronavirus, there has been a jump in cyber threats in the U.S., resulting in data leaks and privacy breaches. Around 24% of experts believe that the current danger is very severe and critical.

Among the cybersecurity threats, work from vulnerabilities in the remote access systems tops the list, accounting for 57% of the attacks. Meanwhile, phishing scams and spam attacks account for a hefty 51%. Around 85% of these experts claim that there might be a targeted cyberattack on the U.S. infrastructure in the next two years. The threat figures went up from 69% in 2018 to 77% in 2019. Among these, around 15% of the respondents believe that the government and the private sector is ready to face these attacks. These percentage figures went down from about 20% in 2019.

The majority of the cybersecurity experts believe that their firms would have to take care of the upcoming cybersecurity challenges. More than half of these believe that they currently lack the required staff force to combat cyber threats. Besides this, the budget required to protect their organization’s data from cyberattacks is also low. Besides the concerns about the lack of resources to defend against cybercriminals, experts also say that they lack proper technology. According to the survey results, only half of the technology tools could be termed effective.

“The survey results suggest that the world’s top cybersecurity professionals are more concerned than ever about cybersecurity risk at the global, national, enterprise, and consumer levels. While cyber threats have been growing in volume and sophistication in recent years, most security professionals believe that the radical shift toward remote access creates unprecedented risk for sensitive data,” says the 2020 Black Hat USA report.