Security News > 2021 > February > Criminals leveraging shift to remote work to develop targeted attacks

"The COVID-19 pandemic compounded this with new challenges in securing remote workforces, making it essential that we quickly become more adaptable and learn how to better protect workers in any environment. While our total detections are down this year, we must remain vigilant. The threats we are seeing are more refined and damaging than ever before."

Despite an overall drop in detections for Macs and Windows in 2020, it's clear the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the cybercrime world so much that many anticipated campaigns either never arrived, arrived with less impact, or were replaced entirely with attacks more suited against users during a pandemic.

While the number of business detections was up 31 percent, consumer Mac detections were down 40 percent.

Harrowing hacktools, surging spyware: Although Windows detections for businesses decreased, detections for hacktools and spyware tools meant to compromise security and/or collect information on the victim increased dramatically - by 147 percent and 24 percent, respectively.

Size matters for Mac threats: When comparing organizational size and Mac threat detections, medium to large businesses experienced mostly adware, which accounted for almost two-thirds of detections, while small businesses experienced primarily PUPs, clocking in at almost 95 percent of all detections.

Taking aim at industry: The agriculture industry suffered through a 607 percent increase in threat detections, while detections for the food and beverage industry increased by 67 percent.

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