Cyberattacks on IoT devices continue to rise at alarming rate: Nokia report

Further, cybercriminals continue to play on people's fears and use the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to promote their agendas. For instance, malware disguised as the Coronavirus Map application mimics the legitimate and authoritative Coronavirus Map issued by the Johns Hopkins University to take advantage of the public's demand for accurate information about COVID-19 infections, deaths and transmissions, says the report.

Cybercriminals continue to exploit the vulnerabilities in internet-connected devices with IoT devices now making up roughly 33% of infected devices, up from about 16% in 2019, says a new report by Nokia that sheds light on the current threat landscape.

According to the Nokia Threat Intelligence Report, there is a massive surge in IoT-related infections because of poor security protections and cybercriminals' use of automated tools to exploit these vulnerabilities.

Further, cybercriminals continue to play on people's fears and use the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to promote their agendas. For instance, malware disguised as the Coronavirus Map application mimics the legitimate and authoritative Coronavirus Map issued by the Johns Hopkins University to take advantage of the public's demand for accurate information about COVID-19 infections, deaths and transmissions, says the report.

The sweeping changes that are taking place in the 5G ecosystem, with even more 5G networks being deployed around the world as we move to 2021, open ample opportunities for malicious actors to take advantage of vulnerabilities in IoT devices. This report reinforces not only the critical need for consumers and enterprises to step up their own cyber protection practices, but for IoT device producers to do the same

Bhaskar Gorti, Nokia Software President and Chief Digital Officer

From smart home security monitoring systems to drones and medical devices, the adoption of internet-connected devices is expected to grow as consumers and enterprises move to take advantage of the high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and fundamentally new networking capabilities offered by 5G, the next-generation wireless technology.

According to the report, the rate of success in infecting IoT devices depends on the visibility of the devices to the internet, especially in networks where devices are routinely assigned public-facing internet IP addresses. However, the rate of infection is considerably low in networks where carrier-grade Network Address Translation is used.