According to the SonicWall Cyber Threat Report 2021 the Coronavirus pandemic’s work-from-home reality resulted in an unprecedented change for organisations as they fought to defend exponentially greater attack surfaces from cyber-criminals with powerful cloud-based tools and cloud storage at their disposal.

SonicWall’s Cyber Threat Report 2021 report’s headline findings include:

1. Global ransomware attacks rose by 62%, with 304.6m attacks worldwide

2. As the workforces went home, Internet of Things devices became the backdoor for hackers, with attacks skyrocketing by 66%

3. COVID-19-based malware attacks reached 18.5m as criminals preyed on people’s fears

4. Sophisticated threat actors varied their attack methods, with malicious Microsoft Office file attacks up by 67%, and complex supply chain attacks a cause of havoc for struggling businesses

5. High-profile attacks flooded the news cycle, with billions of people’s sensitive data leaked onto the Darkweb from the brands such as Estée Lauder, Microsoft and Facebook