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COVID-19 has made a stamp on many industries and impacted business operations on a large scale . We take a look at how cybercriminals have exploited the pandemic and caused detrimental harm to businesses for personal gain . Raj Samani , McAfee Fellow and Chief Scientist , discusses the findings of the McAfee report in more detail .

cybersecurity company based in California , has released its McAfee COVID-19 Threat Report : July 2020 , examining cybercriminal activity related to COVID-19 and the evolution of cyberthreats in Q1 2020 . McAfee Labs saw an average of 375 new threats per minute and a surge of cybercriminals exploiting the pandemic through COVID-19 themed malicious apps , phishing campaigns , malware and more .

New PowerShell malware increased 688 % over the course of the quarter , while total malware grew 1,902 % over the past four quarters . Disclosed incidents targeting the public sector , individuals , education and manufacturing increased ; nearly 47 % of all publicly disclosed security incidents took place in the US .

“ Thus far , the dominant themes of the 2020 threat landscape have been cybercriminals ’ quick adaptation to exploit the pandemic and the considerable impact cyberattacks have had ,” said Raj Samani , McAfee Fellow and Chief Scientist .

“ What began as a trickle of phishing campaigns and the occasional malicious app quickly turned into a deluge of malicious URLs and capable threat actors leveraging the world ’ s thirst for more information on COVID-19 as an entry mechanism into systems across the globe .”

Each quarter , McAfee assesses the state of the cyberthreat landscape based on in-depth research , investigative analysis and threat data gathered by the McAfee

Global Threat Intelligence cloud from over a billion sensors across multiple threat vectors around the world .

Capable threat actors exploit pandemic

McAfee researchers found it is typical of COVID-19 campaigns to use pandemicrelated subjects including testing , www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO

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