‘Epidemic of cybercrime’ underway in midst of pandemic: Security expert

Security experts say there's been an increase in cyberattacks during the pandemic, particularly toward healthcare infrastructure.

According to the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, there’s been an increase in cyber threats related to the COVID-19 pandemic. A portion of that has been against the country’s front-line health-care and medical research facilities.

In June, a ransomware attack forced Toronto’s Humber River Hospital to declare a code grey, meaning loss of essential services. More recently, a cyberattack on Newfoundland and Labrador’s health network data centre resulted in the cancellation of thousands of medical appointments.

Last week, Headwaters Health Care Centre in Orangeville, Ont., announced its systems had been “been subjected to unauthorized access.” The hospital has since begun working with cyber security experts to help safely restore IT services and launch an investigation into what happened, and whether sensitive data was compromised.

“We have never seen this swell of attacks across all sectors, but acutely targeting areas that we feel it the most and causes the most pain, and health care being top of that list,” said David Shipley, CEO of Beauceron Security.

While not all of the attacks have been classified as ransomware, the 2018 National Cyber Threat Assessment (NCTA) identified it as the most common form of malware used for extortion against Canadians.

According to NCTA 2020, cybercriminals have more recently been engaging in big game hunting, honing in on “large enterprises that will not tolerate sustained disruptions to their networks,” and are willing to pay bigger ransoms to restore operations swiftly.

The report also points to researchers estimating that the average ransom demand increased by 33 per cent since Q4 2019 to nearly $150,000 in Q1 2020.

On the higher end, some entities are seeking out millions of dollars.