Part 3 will continue discussing the most dangerous cybersecurity threats of Summer 2022.

Internet of Things

Employees working from home have increased the cyber threat to their employers. Seven out of 10 homes have at least one IoT (Internet of Things) device. As a result, there were more than 1.5 billion IoT-related breaches from January to June 2021. This worrying development has been exacerbated by the typically poor cyber hygiene practices of many American organizations. On average, a smart device will undergo a cyberattack inside five minutes after connecting to the Internet. An average smart home that features several IoT devices can experience more than 12,000 cyberattacks weekly.  

Ransomware

Although not a novel threat, ransomware attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and costly. Hackers are now even offering RaaS (Ransomware-as-a-Service) to enable cybercriminals to easily carry out attacks. From 2018 to 2020, the average business ransom payment rose drastically from $5,000 to $200,000. A ransomware attack can also cause a company serious economic losses by causing an average downtime of 21 days while damaging its reputation.

A 2021 survey of more than 1,200 cybersecurity professionals found two out of three stating that their companies lost a significant amount of revenue because of a ransomware attack. A third said that top executives were dismissed or forced to resign in the aftermath.

Mobile Device Vulnerabilities

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly drove up mobile device usage. Bring-your-own-device policies proliferated and remote workers grew increasingly reliant on their mobile devices. In addition, experts recommended the adoption of touchless payment technologies and mobile wallets to decrease germ transmission. A growing population of mobile users provides cybercriminals with more easy targets.

In 2021, studies found almost half of all companies suffered from a security incident resulting from an employee downloading a malicious mobile application. In addition, hackers are now targeting Mobile Device Management (MDM) systems that are intended to secure corporate data. Unfortunately, they actually make targeting all the employees of a company simultaneously easier because MDMs are connected to the entire network of their mobile devices.

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