Impact of COVID-19... 3.1 Million Cyberattacks in the First Half of the Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] Due to the impact of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), cyberattacks in the first half of the year increased by 19% compared to last year, reaching 3.1 million cases.

According to SK Infosec on the 17th, among the 3.1 million cases detected and responded to by the Secudium Security Control Center until May this year, 445,000 were classified as "high-risk attacks," which is a 1.76-fold increase compared to the previous year. "High-risk attacks" refer to attacks that target specific individuals or exploit zero-day vulnerabilities (security weaknesses exploited before security personnel are aware) that are not easily detected.

SK Infosec believes that the COVID-19 situation influenced the increase in cyberattacks. According to SK Infosec, many email attacks with titles evoking COVID-19 such as "COVID19," "WHO," and "MASK," as well as smishing attacks impersonating emergency disaster relief fund payments, have occurred. Smishing is a combination of SMS and phishing, referring to sending malicious code or URLs via mobile text messages to steal personal information. So far, about 90,000 internet protocols and phishing URLs related to COVID-19 attacks have been discovered.

Besides COVID-19-related attacks, Credential Stuffing attacks have noticeably increased. Credential Stuffing refers to randomly inputting already leaked personal information to log in to various internet websites. About 40% of hacking incidents this year involved user account theft through Credential Stuffing attacks. These attacks were also used in smartphone hacking targeting celebrities in January and in mass smishing text messages related to emergency disaster relief funds.

Kim Seongdong, head of the Incident Response Team at SK Infosec, said, "In the first half of this year, many attacks exploited public anxiety due to COVID-19 and the weakened security situation during remote work," adding, "Even by properly following basic security rules such as blocking suspicious emails or text messages and managing user accounts, damage can be significantly reduced."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.