Targeted ransomware attacks on the healthcare and pharma sector will surge in 2021, according to a report by Seqrite, an enterprise security solutions brand by Quick Heal Technologies,
Healthcare and Pharma sector companies that have been in the front lines working to fight against the Coronavirus pandemic are facing a new wave of ransomware attacks and extortion demands lately.
The report ‘threat prediction 2021’ says that though few ransomware operators agreed to not attack the healthcare sector during the COVID-19 crisis, several other attack groups have continued to use ransomware against this sector, largely because of the sensitive and personal data of patients they store.
Numerous hospitals, COVID-19 research firms, and pharma companies have fallen victim to ransomware in the last quarter of 2020, making it necessary for them to adopt or deploy a comprehensive set of security solutions, says the report.
“Undoubtedly, 2020 started with a significant unforeseen event. Nobody would have imagined of COVID-19 and how it might disrupt economies worldwide. More importantly, the pandemic acted as a huge opportunity for cyber criminals to innovate their attack strategies further, and steal sensitive data for their personal gain,” said Himanshu Dubey, Director, Quick Heal Security Labs.
“These advancements are likely to continue in the coming year as well. For instance, new tactics like double extortion, crypto-mining, ethical hacking, etc. are expected to be widely adopted by threat actors in 2021.”
In 2021, the use of ethical hacking among unethical hackers will increase to inject malware into the systems, according to the Seqrite report which says threat actors will also use deep-fakes, automated phishing, red team tools, and crypto-mining to steal sensitive data .
Strengthening cybersecurity hence became the need of the hour for most businesses in 2020 as they gear up for future, the report notes.