NTT Ltd. today launched its 2021 Global Threat Intelligence Report (GTIR), which reveals how hackers are taking advantage of the global destabilization by targeting essential industries and common vulnerabilities from the shift to remote working. Healthcare, manufacturing, and finance industries all saw an increase in attacks (200%, 300%, and 53% respectively), with these top three sectors accounting for a combined total of 62% of all attacks in 2020, up 11% from 2019.
As organizations race to offer more virtual, remote access through the use of client portals, application-specific and web-application attacks spiked, accounting for 67% of all attacks, which has more than doubled in the past two years. Healthcare bore the brunt of these attacks from its shift to telehealth and remote care, with 97% of all hostile activity targeted at the industry being web-application or application-specific attacks.