Welcome to the November 2020 issue of your Computing Security Newsletter.

The good news of late - and we really did need some! - is that we may soon have a viable vaccine to take on COVID-19. Caution is the operative word at this stage, but the announcement of a mRNA-based vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech is encouraging, to say the least. And there are other vaccines lining up behind it, so the world canperhapstake heart and hope.

That said, in the security world most certainly, this is no time to wait and watch, as the threats surrounding the industry continue to grow. The results of new research by NCC Group, in partnership with strategic insight agency Opinium, show that cyber-attacks have increased in all areas in the last 12 months, with nearly half (48%) of organisations reporting a rise in phishing and malware attacks, 41% an increase in impersonation attacks and 40% a rise in fraud attacks.

Respondents named the post-COVID-19 threat landscape as their biggest challenge, with only 38% believing that their organisation is 'very resilient'.

In all, 69% of organisations think the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to an increase in their cyber budgets. Respondents predicted that investment in cyber security would represent a quarter of their overall IT spend this year.When asked about the changes they anticipate making to their organisation as a result of the pandemic, respondents named continuing with an increase in remote working, more use of the cloud and an increasing focus on digital transformation as their top three.

Ian Thomas, managing director at NCC Group, comments: "By assessing their current security posture, securing digital transformation projects, and ensuring they can monitor, detect and respond to threats quickly, organisations can increase their resilience against cyber threats now and in the future."

Brian Wall, Editor
Computing Security

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