Microsoft Azure Security Center, 3rd Edition

Chapter 1

The threat landscape

In 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world underwent major changes with regard to how people interacted, and businesses had to adjust to the new remote work reality. Some organizations had to make changes in one month that were planned to be done in years. Digital transformation and cloud migration were accelerated. Because of all adaptations that had to be done in a short period of time, the threat landscape changed rapidly, and cybercriminals capitalized their campaigns to exploit the fear of uncertainty.

According to a report from Interpol released in August 2020, phishing attacks grew by 59 percent, malware and ransomware attacks grew by 36 percent, and malicious domain attacks grew by 22 percent—all ...