Never before in History has there been as many cyber-attacks as now. The increase in web traffic caused by the coronavirus pandemic and, especially in recent weeks, the development of the Ukrainian War, has led to an unparalleled growth in the number of cyber-attacks around the globe.
Small and medium-sized businesses receive the most ransomware attacks
The warlike conflict seems to replicate from the Ukrainian streets also to the digital universe. According to information provided by Datos101, the number of fraudulent sites has skyrocketed worldwide, to the point that ransomware attacks have grown by 253% so far this year compared to the figures recorded in the first quarter of 2021.
According to this company’s data, it is small and medium-sized companies that receive most of these attacks perpetrated through malicious emails that seek to deceive the recipient in order to get hold of their personal keys or passwords to access banking entities. Cybercriminals try to attack the servers of SMEs in order to obtain relevant information that will provide them with economic benefits.
But it is not only SMEs that are the target of this increase in cyberattacks. Large companies and public administrations have also seen their systems compromised to a greater extent in recent weeks. This is pointed out by the National Intelligence Center, which states that the most commonly used computer attack is the so-called DDoS (denial of service attack), which consists of sending so much traffic to the server of a page that it finally collapses and crashes.
The volume is higher since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis and has affected large companies such as Telefónica. In these cases, having cloud backups of all company information is essential. These must be automated and external to the headquarters. Ideally, they should be managed by Security Operations Centers (SOCs).
However, the reality is that only about 16% of sMEs perform backups and although in large companies this percentage increases, it is still insufficient, especially when a company is attacked and this is the percentage of companies that do not perform external backups.
