Over the past two months, Check Point security found that cyberattacks on global healthcare organizations increased at an alarming rate, almost double that of cyberattacks targeting other sectors. Check Point covered data from the beginning of November to the end of 2020, comparing it to the two previous months, September and October. This analysis revealed a 45% increase in attacks on the healthcare sector, with global healthcare organizations suffering from 626 weekly attacks on average. For the previous two months, healthcare organizations were experiencing an average of 430 weekly attacks.
The attacks cover a variety of categories, including ransomware, botnets, DDoS, and remote code execution. Check Point found that ransomware represented the largest increase overall, with the Ryuk and Sodinokibi ransomware variants highlighted as being utilized the most during ransomware attacks. Cybercriminals have ultimately been capitalizing on Covid-19 outbreaks and the authorization of coronavirus vaccines, seeing them as distractions to healthcare organizations and allowing them to launch attacks unnoticed.
Read More: Ransomware Surge Drives 45% Increase in Healthcare Cyber-Attacks
