Corona pandemic offers the opportunity to use uncertainty, curiosity and people’s need for information specifically for criminal or insidious activities. Personal health can particularly arouse the need for information, especially when it comes to protective measures, alleged treatment methods, vaccination or alleged information from government agencies.During the pandemic, criminals have an even larger group of professionals to target.
Hospitals or other healthcare facilities would also be targeted by ransomware. Private companies and public bodies such as the World Health Organization have become the focus of suspected government espionage. There were also meetings about partly unsafe conference programs. IT security risks have risen sharply in the wake of the Corona pandemic crisis. The Federal Government’s responses showed that there is a great need for improvement in the protection of critical infrastructures. It is all the more incomprehensible that nothing has happened yet. For its part, the Federal Government also refers to measures already taken to educate and protect citizens, administration, companies and critical infrastructure.
The panel shows that the state should respond to the situation with information campaigns, the expansion of digital education and special support for IT security in small and medium sized companies. Law enforcement agencies need IT specialists. Political and economic sanctions must be used to respond to government cyber attacks.
In the future, it must be ensured that the risk analysis and findings from the joint exercises by the federal and state governments are taken into account and implemented across the board. This has surprisingly clearly predicted the Corona pandemic situation in 2020 in many details. Experts warned that in the coming weeks, different opening times could result in a dangerous patchwork because the pathogen will not stick to the borders of the states.
