Covid-19 themed threats surge: McAfee sees cyber-attack detections increase by 114% in Q4 2020

As businesses the world over adapted to unprecedented numbers of employees working from home, cybercriminals worked feverishly to launch Covid-19-themed attacks on a workforce coping with pandemic restrictions and the potential vulnerabilities of remote device and bandwidth security. As the pandemic began to surge around the world, IT security firm McAfee saw a 605% increase in Q2 2020. These attacks again increased by 240% in Q3 and 114% in Q4.

Recently, McAfee released its Threats Report: April 2021, examining cybercriminal activity related to malware and the evolution of cyber threats in the third and fourth quarters of 2020. In Q4, McAfee Labs observed an average of 648 threats per minute, an increase of 60 threats per minute (10%) over Q3.