Cyber attacks are also on the rise as more and more people work from home during the lockdown. it has seen a 40% jump in data usage during the lockdown as many people spend far more time online than usual, including performing day-to-day tasks such as shopping, banking, watching content and socialising.

Cyber criminals have quickly seized the opportunities to exploit the crisis by adapting their modes of operation and developing new cyber-related attacks and online criminal activities, it warned.

Indian companies pursuing remote working policies need to deploy robust preventive measures to deal with the spike in the incidence of cyber attacks following the Covid-19 outbreak, said a Pwc report.

February saw a sudden spike, most focused on exploiting vulnerable services and obtaining easy access to remote desktops. There were untargeted phishing campaigns too wherein attackers impersonated personnel from various agencies battling Covid-19. After two primary sustained waves in February, attack volumes fell to a median level,” the report said.

On the volume of attack, the report said that after March 15, when India witnessed rising Covid-19 cases, there was a massive wave of attacks targeting several Indian companies. “Many witnessed a 100 percent increase in attacks between February 17 and February 20,” the report added.

Given the current threat landscape, it said that companies utilising remote working policies need to deploy “robust preventive and detective technical measures” to deal with the increasing threat of cyber attacks.

Every day, new variants of malware are being released through phishing emails in the name of officials from the World Health Organization

cybersecurity company Lucideus has seen a surge in attacks as well.

“Our SAFE (Security Assessment Framework for an Enterprise) threat intel team has found a number of phishing emails claiming to be from the WHO and other government agencies promising to provide healthcare support to cure coronavirus,” said Lucideus co-founder Rahul Tyagi.

Tyagi, citing a separate report, said a wave of 2,500 infections of just two malware strains were delivered in coronavirus-themed emails recently.

Trishneet Arora, founder of TAC Security, said people are offering fake maps that show infected users that require a person to download software to generate fake maps. “In fact, hospital systems were hacked which in-turn had delayed a lot of reports related to COVID-19, endangering the lives of probably millions,” he said.

Debasish Mukherjee as VP, Regional Sales APAC, at SonicWall says, “During challenging times such as the Covid 19 pandemic, organizations have very little choice but to mandate work from home policies for its employees. This implies a need to maintain flexible work environment without losing availability. However, deploying a highly efficient remote location can be complex, expensive and time consuming as protecting its data and systems are primary concerns. SonicWall’s Capture Labs is working 24×7 to keep its customers informed of the impending cyberthreats.”

CrowdStrike said it had observed an e-crime actor it tracks, called MUMMY SPIDER, capitalizing on the outbreak with a spam email theme.

Check Point said, while 71% of those IT and security professionals who were surveyed reported an increase in security threats or attacks, 61% of respondents said they were concerned about security risks of changes made to enable remote work.

Based on the pattern of attacks across Indian organisations, using data collected via logs and various other sensors, Pwc’s cyber security team analysed the cyber attacks on Indian entities in the last few weeks. The reason is as the organisations are more focused on continuity of day-to-day operations than on plugging the gaps in the remote infrastructure.

Cyber criminals may pose as agents of legitimate well-known charities or create their own charities and request donations for medical research or to support victims and their families.