Criminals attempted to take advantage of Hong Kong residents’ COVID-associated anxiety, in step with new protection records launched the previous day with the aid of using the Special Administrative Region’s secretary for innovation and era Alfred Sit.
The secretary disclosed the records in reaction to a letter to the Legislative Council from barrister and non-respectable member of the Executive Council, Martin Liao.
Liao noted records that the Hong Kong Hospital Authority (HA) changed into subjected to 50 million cyberattacks closing year, up from 20 million in 2015, with the HA additionally copping 5 ransomware assaults closing year. He requested the authorities to offer greater info on present-day cybersecurity trends.
Sit spoke back with a breakdown of statistics safety incidents dealt with via way of means of the Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre (HKCERT) from 2018 till 2020, revealing a general lower in attacks, however a surge in phishing.
Incident numbers fell from 10,081 in 2018 to 9,458 in 2019 and 8,346 in 2020. Phishing instances expanded via way of means of sixty-six percentage (2018 to 2019) and 35 percent to 3,483 instances (2019 to 2020). Malicious software programs decreased via way of means of eighty-five percentage from 1,219 instances in 2019 to 181 instances in 2020.
DDoS assaults remained withinside the double digits for all 3 years, however, confirmed a forty-three percentage growth from 2019 to 2020. Sit chalks that as much as a “growth withinside the ‘assault surfaces’ due to the supply of extra online offerings through numerous sectors at some point of the epidemic.”
The secretary additionally disclosed records on cybercrimes dealt with via way of means of the Hong Kong Police Force. Those numbers discovered that e-purchasing fraud and romance scams have pulled in much less cash according to scam, however, observed extra sufferers in 2020 than in 2019. Monetary loss totaled HK$2.964B (US$382M) in 2020 via 12,916 instances, a fifty-five percentage growth in instances from 2019 which pulled in HK$2.907B (US$374M).
Liao’s letter inquired approximately assaults at the healthcare industry, an object of the situation after current software outages in Hong Kong hospitals and April World Health Organization (WHO) records that recorded a fivefold growth in cyber assaults and a particular incident leaking 450 energetic WHO email addresses and passwords online.
Ransomware is likewise a situation withinside the healthcare industry, and a few operators of the software program have pledged now no longer to goal scientific corporations at some point of the modern-day pandemic. However, each New Zealand’s Waikato District Health Board and Ireland’s nationalized fitness provider have been attacked via way of means of ransomware in advance this month.