A Study on How the Pandemic Changed the Cybersecurity Landscape

This article studies the main changes inflicted by COVID-19 on the cybersecurity field. First, we analyze the main changes in how people used technology during the pandemic compared to before. The changes are classified into two categories: those that take place in the personal life and those specific to the professional environment. Then, the article studies to what extent each of the two categories impacted the cybersecurity domain. The main types of attacks that raised in popularity during the pandemic are discussed, together with causes, consequences, and mitigation strategies. Our work shows that the most important changes in terms of incidents have been related to ransomware, phishing, and remote desktop protocol (RDP) attacks. We studied how COVID-19 restrictions generated the increase in phishing and RDP attacks. Then, to prove that ransomware was also influenced by the pandemic, we had to validate our hypothesis that the increase in both RDP and phishing attacks were the main causes of the intensification of ransomware attacks. We obtained strong correlation indicators which validated our hypothesis. The measures taken by companies are further discussed, whether they are cybersecurityrelated companies or specialized in other areas. The paper also studies the evolution of cybersecurity companies' stocks before and after the start of the pandemic. A correlation matrix based on the stock price evolution was performed, which indicates the influence of the pandemic on cybersecurity.