Mid-Year Threat Landscape Report

The threat landscape has always been influenced by events and shifts in cybercriminal practices, but the global coronavirus pandemic has caused a significant shift both in how cybercriminals operate and how they hone their skills. A defining characteristic of the first half of 2020 in terms of threats and malware is that they all played on the same theme: the pandemic. A spike in scams, phishing and malware across all platforms and attack vectors seems to have been a direct result of cybercriminals leveraging issues related toCovid-19 to exploit fear and misinformation. This catalyst was responsible for a five-fold increase1 in the number of coronavirus-themed reports in the first two weeks of March alone. Then, in May and June, an average of 60 percent of all received emails were fraudulent, according to Bitdefender telemetry. Whether it was phishing scam exploiting the coronavirus, a fundraiser or a jawdropping offer you couldn’t resist, bad actors have pulled every trick of the trade to fool victims into providing sensitive information, installing malware, or falling prey to scams.

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