Intelligent CIO LATAM Issue 01 | Page 34

EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
DANIELA ALVAREZ DE LUGO , GENERAL MANAGER FOR
KASPERSKY ’ S NOLA REGION

2020 was an unusual year as it was marked by the pandemic , which led to both work and study moving home , and video conferences replacing social and business meetings . This massive shift to online life increased cybersecurity concerns , for while cybercriminals did not invent any new ruse during this time , they did actively exploit the COVID-19 theme as bait for their malicious campaigns , a trend that will clearly continue during 2021 .

downloading software from torrent sites , 65 % used these sites for music and 66 % for movies .
The different types of phishing pages distributed around the world , in addition to spam emails , have seen recipients who are invited to receive a vaccine , participate in a survey or answer a questionnaire to
The reality is that cybercriminals have not changed their behavior , they simply take advantage of a situation and see the opportunity to trick users into obtaining personal information or their money .
On the other hand , as many workers are working virtually , the number of remote access attacks increased . One reason is because , in the office , IT administrators are responsible for keeping enterprise connections and networks secure , but when their colleagues have to set up their own devices and networks , they can expose vulnerabilities that are exploited by cybercriminals .
In this sense , cybercriminals significantly increased attacks against Remote Desktop Protocol ( RDP ) compared to the pre-pandemic period . In Colombia ’ s specific case , 91.6 million such attacks were recorded last year . The action of attackers is to test different usernames and passwords until they find the right combination to access corporate resources . diagnose the COVID-19 virus . These are just some of the ways cybercriminals adapt their attacks according to the situation being lived locally , regionally or globally .
Likewise , attackers have actively leveraged the growing interest in online entertainment , to lure users to fake sites and persuade them to download malicious programs disguised as a movie or installation file . A total of 61 % of users surveyed admitted to
The reality is that cybercriminals have not changed their behavior , they simply take advantage of a situation and see the opportunity to trick users into obtaining personal information or their money .
That ’ s why it ’ s imperative that people have a basic understanding of cybersecurity and understand the consequences that their bad online habits can have , because day after day we see more online attacks , and although they employ familiar techniques , unfortunately they remain effective .
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