Trends in cybercrime during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated many organisations' reliance on the Internet, with schools, companies, and government agencies, among other institutions, all shifting their operations online in a relatively short period of time. This sudden shift created opportunities for cybercriminals, as did the burden on the healthcare sector, the rush for unemployment benefits, and the desire for up-to-date information about outbreaks and health precautions. This chapter examines the trends in cybercrime during the COVID-19 pandemic that were spurred by these changes, as well as the mitigation measures implemented by government and private industry stakeholders to help protect critical infrastructure and online operations. It argues that the nature of cybercrime and the most common forms of criminal activity did not change substantially during the pandemic, but rather that criminals' focus on whom to target and how to exploit evolving current events enabled them to wield existing criminal tools to greater effect, and potentially also at greater scale, though reliable statistics on the frequency and size of cybercrimes are scarce. Finally, the chapter considers how these trends in cybercrime forced private organisations and governments to undertake new cybersecurity measures and programs and whether the long-term effects of the pandemic might actually include stronger cybersecurity if these efforts continue past the end of the public health crisis. © 2023 the authors.

Introduction

This chapter is contextual in nature. It provides an overview of the impact of COVID-19, highlighting both the significant number of deaths caused by the pandemic as well as the economic disruption that occurred. Particular attention is paid to the role of digital technologies during the pandemic, which enabled a wide range of activities (e.g. work, education and shopping) to go online. The disruptive impact of COVID-19 is widespread and far-reaching, with the pandemic acting as a 'change agent' expanding and encouraging the greater use of digital technologies. The second half of the chapter presents summaries of the other chapters in the book. In doing so, it illustrates the scope and scale of the impact of COVID-19, the multitude of different challenges it has caused, and how these varied across different regions and contexts, as well as the diversity of reactions to the pandemic. Some of these reactions are technical in nature, while others are commercial and political. The summaries also draw attention to ongoing policy debates, the significance of which has been heightened by the pandemic. © 2023 the authors.

Analysis of Attack Patterns and Cyber Threats in Healthcare Sector

Information Technology (IT) has become the integral part of majority of businesses. Healthcare sector is also one such sector where IT adoption is increased in recent times. This adoption of IT has increased the internet exposure and hence increased the attack surface of the organisations working in healthcare sector. During covid outbreak, we have observed various cyber-attack and threats on organisations operating in healthcare sector. This paper focuses on cyber threat pattern in healthcare sector during covid-19 outbreak and post-covid-19 period. This research paper also aims to generate basic cyber awareness through generic cyber sanity checks to secure healthcare sector from malicious threat actors. The adaptation of proactive measures required to enhance the cyber hygiene of organisations becomes very essential in this sector. © 2023 IEEE.

Key Factors Related to Cyber Security Affecting Consumer Attitude in Online Shopping: A Study in Bangladesh

Cybersecurity is an increasingly important factor in consumer attitudes toward online shopping. Online shopping has become an essential part of our lives in this digital era. As the popularity of online and e-commerce shopping continues to grow, so does the potential for cyber threats and attacks. As more and more consumers turn to online shopping, cyber threats such as hacking, identity theft, and credit card fraud have become more frequent. Therefore, understanding the factors of cybersecurity that affect consumer attitude is essential to build trust and creating a safe and sound shopping environment. This research explores the factors of cybersecurity that affect consumers' attitudes to shopping online and uses a survey to test several hypotheses related to influential cyber factors. Bangladesh is a developing country in Southeast Asia, and like many other countries, has experienced an increase in cyber threats and attacks in recent years. Consumers in Bangladesh face many of the same cyber threats, such as phasing attacks, malware, data breach, and other types of cyber security threats over online shopping. As a result of these cyber threats, online consumers are increasingly concerned about online security risks which may impact their willingness to engage in online shopping. Therefore, it is essential to identify critical factors of cyber security that impact consumers's attitudes toward online shopping to mitigate cyber risk and improve consumer trust in online shopping. This paper provides the result of a research study that will provide a better understanding of factors that influence consumer's trust and engagement with online and E-commerce platforms in Bangladesh) . © 2023 IEEE.

Ransomware in local government: Risk factors, vulnerabilities, and exploitation during a global pandemic

This research concentrates on ransomware attacks and their effects in local government. With attacks dating back to the late 1980's, this classification of malware has shifted its focus from end-users to a more lucrative high-profile, big-game hunting style. This resurgence in recent years has proven that the size and variety of threats faced today needs solutions to efficiently identify and examine more comprehensive ransomware security strategies. In this research, the evidence dictates that it is necessary to broaden current security methods to protect local government and municipality systems as well as data from the ever-increasing number of ransomware attacks. In favor of this assertion, the beginning of the research will examine the evolution of ransomware, its damaging characteristics, and its advancements. Furthermore, the financial and economic impacts these attacks have on local governments is outlined. This will be fol-lowed by methodologies with results and findings to outline a wireless audit and a survey of government employees. Finally, defense-in-depth measures to mitigate the proliferation of ransomware outbreaks will be defined. © International Association for Computer Information Systems. All Rights Reserved.

Online Threats vs. Mitigation Efforts: Keeping Children Safe in the Era of Online Learning

As the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in school closures since early 2020, children have spent more time online through virtual classrooms using educational technology (EdTech) and videoconferencing applications. This increased presence of children online exposes them to more risk of cyber threats. Here, we present a review of the current research and policies to protect children while online. We seek to answer four key questions: what are the online threats against children when learning online, what is known about children's cybersecurity awareness, what government policies and recommendations are implemented and proposed to protect children online, and what are the proposed and existing efforts to teach cybersecurity to childrenƒ Our study emphasizes the online risks to children and the importance of protective government policies and educational initiatives that give kids the knowledge and empowerment to protect themselves online. © 2023 IEEE.

Analysis of Network Security Protection Based on Digital Economy

Since the first half of 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic has continued to spread across the country. Based on this background, with the continuous promotion of a new round of technological innovation and industrial transformation, and the combined impact of the epidemic factors, the digital economy has become a new pillar of the steady development of China's macro economy. Emerging industries have provided good opportunities for the digital economy. Cyber security has risen to the height of national sovereignty, which is the direct embodiment of national competitiveness and the foundation for the healthy development of the digital economy. However, with the concentration of massive data and the progress of information technology, the data is easily and conveniently used, personal privacy security, corporate business secrets and even national security suffered serious damage, and network security protection has also become the bottleneck of the digital economy to a new level. It is particularly important to strengthen the network security governance capacity, improve the network security laws and regulations, and implement the hierarchical protection system. © 2023 SPIE.

Paying Attention to cyber-attacks: A multi-layer perceptron with self-attention mechanism

Cyber-attacks cause huge monetary losses to the institutions that are victims of them. Cyber-attack is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Therefore, the protection system against cyber-attacks has become a highly requested resource by any type of state or private institution. During the pandemic caused by COVID-19, the number of cyber-attacks against both public and private health institutions has increased. Cybersecurity systems have become a necessity. Various protection systems have been proposed using different machine learning algorithms, but deep learning consistently provides the best results. In this work we develop a deep learning model for the detection of different kinds of cyber-attacks, a study is carried out on the relevance of the selection of features in this type of algorithm and the importance of attention mechanisms is analyzed to improve the assessment of features within the same model. We have carried out the experiments using two datasets that are benchmarks in the field of cybersecurity and we have carried out a comparative study with both.

BEsafe - Validating URLs and Domains with the aid of Indicator of Compromise

The advancement of information technology has stimulated the conversion of physical interactions to online activities, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, users' awareness and cyber hygiene need to be emphasized when they are involved in the cyber world. A browser extension named 'BEsafe' is developed to validate the websites and promote a safe browsing environment. It prevents users from falling prey to network-based attacks and raises their security awareness. To ensure users' privacy, the permissions needed for BEsafe are listed on the permission tab. Moreover, BEsafe will not be working on Incognito mode by default to promise that the private mode leaves no tracks. However, the user can still enable the extension to be functioning on Incognito mode by navigating to the Extension Details and turning on the relevant toggle. © 2023 IEEE.

Secure Practices to Prevent Cyber Attacks in E-Commerce Sites

E-commerce sites are flourishing nowadays in lockdown. A lot of entrepreneurs are making their own sites and selling them online. In 2020, one of INTERPOL's private sector partners detected 907,000 spam messages, 737 malware incidents, and 48,000 malware URLs connected to COVID-19 during the period from January to April. 'Cybercriminals are developing and boosting their attacks at an alarming pace, exploiting the fear and uncertainty caused by the unstable social and economic situation created by COVID-19.' states Jürgen Stock, INTERPOL Secretary General. The main threats during this pandemic are Malware/Ransomware(36%), Phishing/Scam(59%), Fake News(14%) and Malicious Domains(22%). Cybercriminals are active in these pandemic times and the developers designing stunning user interfaces without basic cybersecurity knowledge is a great attraction for these criminals. Our goal is to explain how easily hackers gain access by selecting 10 top vulnerabilities from OWASP and exploiting them. © 2023 IEEE.

A Holistic Framework for Safeguarding of SMEs: A Case Study

The rapid digitalisation of SMEs, further expedited as a business continuity measure against Covid19 impact, has brought along major cybersecurity challenges, as it creates a fertile landscape for malicious actors, that want to capitalise on the insufficient cybersecurity planning and preparedness of SMEs to conduct low-effort, lucrative attacks. This paper constitutes a case study on the cybersecurity challenges, specificities and the safeguarding of the ATracker, a real-life data collection and analytics engine developed by the SME Suite5. The ATracker has been successfully protected against attacks in conjunction with the PUZZLE Framework, a holistic policy-based cybersecurity solution, addressing major cybersecurity pillars and leveraging on the latest scientific advancements in cybersecurity research. © 2023 IEEE.

Teaching Effective and Gamified Cybersecurity using the Metaverse: Challenges and Opportunities

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a tectonic shift in the way that institutions, ranging from k-12 to higher education, approach their teaching and learning strategies. It is an understatement to say that teaching effective and gamified Cybersecurity courses amidst the COVID19 pandemic placed an extreme pressure on faculty. While Zoom, WebEx, and Google Classroom virtual meeting were sufficient for some, others were in pursuit of platforms which could address the hands-on interaction component that happens in a class setting while isolating and/or removing some of the distractive and engagement-adverse ingredients that occur in traditional remote meeting platforms. To this end we present some challenges and opportunities which exist in the intersection of Cybersecurity learning and teaching through the Metaverse. As an extension we plan to measure the effectiveness of Metaverse towards Cybersecurity gamified remote learning by providing future research directions towards the ultimate goal of metamorphosing traditional Cybersecurity classrooms. © 2023 IEEE.

A Cybersecurity Evaluation Model (CSEM) for Indian SMEs Working in a Virtual Team Environment

During COVID-19 pandemic, there has been unprecedented increase in the number of employees working outside an organisations IT infrastructure due to the use of personal devices. The scale and sophistication of cyberattacks also continue to increase post-COVID-19 and it has become critical for SMEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) to safeguard their information and IT assets. COVID19 proved to be a major catalyst for the adoption of digital approaches to remote working that many organisations did not previously believe to be feasible. The systems are becoming increasingly exposed to cyber-attacks as a result of remote access technology and cloud networks. The literature points to a gap in the existing knowledge to address the cybersecurity requirements for SMEs in India working in a virtual setup. The purpose of this paper is to develop a cybersecurity evaluation model (CSEM) that can be leveraged by SMEs which will eventually help them assess their cyber-risk portfolio. Based on the research project and the methodology used in the past for similar research, a quantitative approach will be chosen for this research. This research requires the researcher to roll out an online survey, which will enable the participants to evaluate cybersecurity risks by responding to the survey questionnaire. Analysing and implementing a CSEM will not only assist SMEs in identifying their strengths and weaknesses but will also include simple best practice guidelines for effectively plugging their cybersecurity flaws while working remotely. © 2022 IEEE.

An Effective Threat Detection Framework for Advanced Persistent Cyberattacks

Recently, with the normalization of non-face-to-face online environments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the possibility of cyberattacks through endpoints has increased. Numerous endpoint devices are managed meticulously to prevent cyberattacks and ensure timely responses to potential security threats. In particular, because telecommuting, telemedicine, and tele-education are implemented in uncontrolled environments, attackers typically target vulnerable endpoints to acquire administrator rights or steal authentication information, and reports of endpoint attacks have been increasing considerably. Advanced persistent threats (APTs) using various novel variant malicious codes are a form of a sophisticated attack. However, conventional commercial antivirus and anti-malware systems that use signature-based attack detection methods cannot satisfactorily respond to such attacks. In this paper, we propose a method that expands the detection coverage in APT attack environments. In this model, an open-source threat detector and log collector are used synergistically to improve threat detection performance. Extending the scope of attack log collection through interworking between highly accessible open-source tools can efficiently increase the detection coverage of tactics and techniques used to deal with APT attacks, as defined by MITRE Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge (ATT&CK). We implemented an attack environment using an APT attack scenario emulator called Carbanak and analyzed the detection coverage of Google Rapid Response (GRR), an open-source threat detection tool, and Graylog, an open-source log collector. The proposed method expanded the detection coverage against MITRE ATT&CK by approximately 11% compared with that conventional methods. © 2023 Tech Science Press. All rights reserved.

Federated learning based Covid-19 detection.

The world is affected by COVID-19, an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Tests are necessary for everyone as the number of COVID-19 affected individual's increases. So, the authors developed a basic sequential CNN model based on deep and federated learning that focuses on user data security while simultaneously enhancing test accuracy. The proposed model helps users detect COVID-19 in a few seconds by uploading a single chest X-ray image. A deep learning-aided architecture that can handle client and server sides efficiently has been proposed in this work. The front-end part has been developed using StreamLit, and the back-end uses a Flower framework. The proposed model has achieved a global accuracy of 99.59% after being trained for three federated communication rounds. The detailed analysis of this paper provides the robustness of this work. In addition, the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) will improve the ease of access to the aforementioned health services. IoMT tools and services are rapidly changing healthcare operations for the better. Hopefully, it will continue to do so in this difficult time of the COVID-19 pandemic and will help to push the envelope of this work to a different extent.

Resilience in healthcare systems: Cyber security and digital transformation

The digital transformation of the healthcare sector is an essential development as societies move into a post-industrial, knowledge-based economy. The adoption of the latest technologies and their applications in the health and care systems must be managed effectively from the perspective of their cyber security and resilience. However, there is still a limited understanding of the key concepts that must define the strategic vision of a resilient and sustainable digital transformation of the healthcare sector. Using data collected at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic from owners and C-level executives from critical infrastructure sectors in the United Kingdom, this research analysed core constructs that contribute to the required transformative, adaptive and absorptive capacities for health systems digital resilience. The research found that a balanced base of cyber security knowledge development, uncertainty management, and consideration for the sector's high levels of systemic and organisational interdependence are essential for its digital resilience and for the sustainability of its digital transformation efforts. The paper describes the implications of these findings for research and manage-ment practice.

Management Processes at Software Level to Enhance Intelligent Vehicles Ergonomics

The software development process is at the heart of intelligent vehicles (connected and autonomous vehicles), and it must be managed with diligence. The development of automaticity and connectivity is carried out through functional safety and, respectively, cybersecurity development processes, guided by standards that describe procedures, best practices, hazards, threats, and management strategies. By improving the software development process, the ergonomics of the intelligent vehicles will be increased. This paper presents the way on how to manage the process of achieving automaticity and connectivity through software development and if the COVID-19 pandemic could altered the management team strategy and software development process.

Security and Privacy in Wireless Sensor Networks Using Intrusion Detection Models to Detect DDOS and Drdos Attacks: A Survey

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) playa significant role in the collection and transmission of data. The principal data collectors and broadcasters are small wireless sensor nodes. As a result of their disorganized layout, the nodes in this network are vulnerable to intrusion. Every aspect of human life includes some form of technological interaction. While the Covid-19 pandemic has been ongoing, the whole corporate and academic world has gone digital. As a direct result of digitization, there has been a rise in the frequency with which Internet-based systems are attacked and breached. The Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and Distributed Reflective Denial of Service (DRDoS) assaults are new and dangerous type of cyberattacks that can quickly bring down any service or application that relies on the Internet's infrastructure. Cybercriminals are always refining their methods of attack and evading detection by using techniques that are out of date. Traditional detection systems are not suited to identify novel DDoS attacks since the volume of data created and stored has expanded exponentially in recent years. This research provides a comprehensive overview of the relevant literature, focusing on deep learning for DDoS and DRDoS detection. Due to the expanding number of loT gadgets, distributed DDoS and DRDoS attacks are becoming more likely and more damaging. Due to their lack of generalizability, current attack detection methods cannot be used for early detection of DDoS and DRDoS, resulting in significant load or service degradation when implemented at the endpoint. In this research, a brief review is performed on the models that are used for identification of DDoS and DRDoS attacks. The working of the existing models and the limitations of the models are briefly analyzed in this research. © 2023 IEEE.

The two-step cluster analysis of pre-COVID-19 experience and cybersecurity concerns about online education for academic staff in Saudi universities

The purpose of this research is to learn about the attitudes of the academic staff of the medical, business, humanities, and science and engineering disciplines concerning online education during the COVID-19 pandemic at Umm Al-Qura University (UQU), Saudi Arabia. While research in online education focuses on learning experiences such as facilities, learning materials, and learning interests, several elements of online education in this research were investigated, including advantages, features, and cybersecurity. The research data were gathered through a survey containing three demographic items, four items on perceptions of online education, and seven questions on perceptions of cybersecurity. Responses obtained from 238 academic staff were used for statistical analysis. After the routine descriptive analysis analyses, the response data were subjected to unsupervised k-means centroid cluster analysis. Two clusters of academic staff differing in teaching disciplines, and pre-COVID experience in online education were identified. Cluster 1 had medical and business and humanities academic staff, predominated by those without pre-COVID experience in online education, and perceived online education and cybersecurity at neutral to a slightly low level. Cluster 2 consisted of science and engineering discipline academic staff predominated by those with pre-COVID online education experience and perceived online education and cybersecurity in the range of neutral to slightly high levels. The result of this study shows that academic staff in the medical, business, and humanities disciplines have less expertise with online education software and a low level of awareness about online education security. On the other hand, academic staff of science and engineering disciplines fields has more expertise with online educational technologies and a better level of understanding of online education security. © 2022 The Authors.

Towards an ethical and trustworthy of virtual work environment in current workplace

It is constructed via community interchange philosophy, a research observes an impact related to relational or informational work environment over ethical business as well job involvement through corporate crises affected via pandemic of COVID-19. A works examination was conducted via freshly printed articles for locating studies concerning ethics of work environment and COVID-19 in current worldwide market. Including strategy of best practice with current circumstances, explain current learning basis, gap during practice & zones which might need improvement and further study. Outcomes indicate that to control such increase related to pandemic of COVID-19 did increase remoting working workplace with virtual work situation. Such outcomes can produce a necessity of experiential investigation for an impact related to virtual work environment as well as active behaviors for supporting such requirements or consequences related to persons that might be around red zone that or feeling misuse or abandonment although defensive, socially isolating and once occupied within a situation in social-distancing is mandatory. Research is established by analysis or assessment related to issued researches ae well as current workplace circumstances none of different forms of study. Small is common regarding ethical woke environment practice in era related to COVID-19, remote working, social-distancing or remote-working. research enhances body related to awareness within field. © 2023 University of Bahrain. All rights reserved.