Last Updated on January 27, 2021

And finally the last timeline for 2020 is published (in the next few days I will publish the statistics for December and the whole 2020). In this second timeline of December (the first one is here) I have collected 97 events. Despite this number shows a clear decrease compared with the first timeline (where I collected 125 events), you need to consider that “Christmas Event” where a single threat actor dumped 368.8 million records from 26 companies, 6 of which were previously unreported. So if on one hand this timeline is characterized by this massive mega-breach (spoiler alert: it’s not the only one), on the other hand, ransomware continues to be the most prevalent threat, characterizing the 33% of the events.

The list of high-profile victims continue to grow and this timeline is no exception. More organizations fall victims of double extortion attacks, and more data dumps emerge in the criminals’ sites. In one particular case (the Pay2Key ransomware operations allegedly carried out by the Iranian actor Fox Kitten) the ransomware is also being used as a cyber weapon for destructive operations against multiple target in Israel.

The cyber espionage front is equally quite active and, easily predictable, state-sponsored groups (similarly to the ransomware gangs) are setting their sights to entities related to the development of the COVID-19 vaccine (this is the case of the Lazarus Group). Equally remarkable is the discovery of a cyber espionage operation against 36 Al Jazeera journalists, allegedly carried out via the technology provided by the infamous NSO Group.

Details and links for each event are in the timeline! Thanks for sharing it and supporting my work in spreading the risk awareness across the community. Also, don’t forget to follow @paulsparrows on Twitter, or even connect on Linkedin, for the latest updates.

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