Ransomware extortion has rapidly become the key cyber threat to organisations globally. Organisations’ increasing reliance on digital services and interconnected business, IT and operational systems has led to rising profitability of cybercrime and ever more advanced cybercriminal tactics. In the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened such threats. This has encouraged advanced cybercriminal groups to deviate from traditional cybercrime and fraud in favour of ransomware extortion and is also driving less technically capable cybercriminals to adopt such methods.

As we move closer to the mid-point of the year, we can look back on the period since 1st January with mixed emotions. On New Year’s night we were looking forward to a brand-new year with some optimism, and we all hoped that the year ahead could not be as difficult as the one just past. Those hopes were dealt a severe blow as we were forced to endure a prolonged period of Level 5 restrictions from the beginning of the year, but throughout the period of lockdown there was a greater sense of normality than during last year’s more stringent lockdown periods. The vaccination programme was being rolled out across the world, albeit at varying speeds, but at least they were being rolled out. We also saw a number of countries gradually relaxing restrictions, and here in Ireland, the COB-related health statistics were moving in the right direction.

OPTIMISTIC GLOBAL OUTLOOK
​Since the beginning of the year has been a steady upward revision to global economic forecasts by international forecasting agencies. The IMF now expects the global economy to expand by a strong 6 per cent in 2021. The upbeat assessment is based on the successful rollout of the vaccination programme, and the ongoing strong official fiscal and monetary policy response across the globe.