Cyber attacks in Portugal continued to increase in the first half of this year | Coronavirus
Incidents reported by the National Cybersecurity Center increased by 23% in the first half of this year compared to the same period in 2020 and were up 124% compared to 2019, meaning that confinement had “clear effects” on cyberattacks.
The Cybersecurity Observatory bulletin, released this Thursday, advances that in the first half of this year, 847 incidents were recorded by the National Cybersecurity Center (CERT.PT), while in the same period in 2020 there were 689 and, in 2019, there were 378.
The document states that, in 2021, there was an increase of 23% compared to 2020 and 124% compared to 2019, with the months of April 2020, with 150 incidents, and February this year, with 190, the which recorded higher values and those that also show higher levels of social confinement due to the covid-19 pandemic.
“The first half of 2020 was a period that clearly showed the effects of social confinement on cybersecurity. As of March, the number of incidents registered by CERT.PT increased to uneven levels. Although a decline later occurred, it did not return to pre-pandemic levels. The first half of 2021 reinforced this idea, with even higher values and peaks parallel to moments of greater social confinement”, the bulletin says.
The Cybersecurity Observatory also indicates that the periods of state of emergency (from March to May 2020 and from November 2020 to April 2021) coincide with “the upward curves in terms of incident records by CERT.PT”.
According to the same document, the phishing (a cybercrime technique that uses fraud, trick or deception to manipulate people and obtain confidential information) continues to be the most frequent type of incident among those registered by CERT.PT, followed by “social engineering”.
Without the first semester, the phishing it reached 40% of the incidents, while in the same period of 2020 it corresponded to 38%, and “social engineering” increased from 0.4% of the total in the first half of 2020 to 13% this year.
“The highlights of the phishing and social engineering demonstrating the importance of the human factor. O phishing it is a form of manipulation that drives users to share sensitive information. One of the techniques most used by attackers is the argument of authority, that is, a simulation of the identity of an entity with sufficient authority to not raise suspicions”, said the bulletin, noting that the sector most targeted by this strategy in Portugal is the banking.
The most common cases categorized as “social engineering” by CERT.PT this year were the sextortion (49%), a CEO Fraud (12%), an attempt to swindle through a fictitious advance case (11%) and swindle through the MB Way platform (7%), related in any of these cases to the human factor in which it is through the manipulation of people the attackers seek to gain.
The Cybersecurity Observatory explains that the sextortion is an extortion based on the threat of exposure of supposed intimate images, a CEO Fraud occurs when someone pretends to be the head of an organization, requesting a bank transfer from a subordinate, a swindle through a fictitious case of gain seeks gains with a promise of money and MB Way use cases concern would-be buyers who lead sellers connected transferring money improperly.
“The importance of the human factor in at least 53% of incidents recorded in the 1st Semester of 2021 (40% of phishing + 13% social engineering) puts the hypothesis that social confinement is somehow correlated with the attack strategy that exploit this vector”, emphasizes the bulletin.