Cyber security in the age of COVID-19: a timeline and analysis of cyber-crime and cyber-attacks during the pandemic
Open accessAbstract
The COVID-19 pandemic was a remarkable, unprecedented event which altered the lives of billions of citizens globally resulting in what became commonly referred to as the new-normal in terms of societal norms and the way we live and work. Aside from the extraordinary impact on society and business as a whole, the pandemic generated a set of unique cyber-crime related circumstances which also affected society and business. The increased anxiety caused by the pandemic heightened the likelihood of cyber-attacks succeeding corresponding with an increase in the number and range of cyber-attacks. This paper analyses the COVID-19 pandemic from a cyber-crime perspective and highlights the range of cyber-attacks experienced globally during the pandemic. Cyber-attacks are analysed and considered within the context of key global events to reveal the modus-operandi of cyber-attack campaigns. The analysis shows how following what appeared to be large gaps between the initial outbreak of the pandemic in China and the first COVID-19 related cyber-attack, attacks steadily became much more prevalent to the point that on some days, three or four unique cyber-attacks were being reported. The analysis proceeds to utilise the UK as a case study to demonstrate how cyber-criminals leveraged salient events and governmental announcements to carefully craft and execute cyber-crime campaigns.
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Romance scams have become a growing problem, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside other cybercrimes.
“Romance scams have become a growing problem, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside other cybercrimes (Kemp et al., 2021;Lallie et al., 2021).”
From Tainted Love: a Systematic Literature Review of Online Romance Scam Research (2023) · cites this paper as Lallie et al., 2021
The Literature review (page not provided) reports that scams and malware attacks rose during the pandemic, supporting the claim about other cybercrimes. It does not identify romance scams or say that the pandemic exacerbated them specifically; searches for “romance” and “romance scams” found no such passage. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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- Authors
- Lallie, H. S., Shepherd, L. A., Nurse, J. R. C., Erola, A., Epiphaniou, G., Maple, C., & Bellekens, X.
- Affiliations
- University of Warwick (GB)
- Abertay University (GB)
- University of Kent (GB)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- University of Strathclyde (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Lallie, Harjinder Singh
- ORCID
- Venue
- Computers & Security
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-06
- Volume
- 105
- Pages
- 102248
- ISSN
- 0167-4048 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC9755115
- OpenAlex
- W3036035276
- Cited by
- 671
- References
- 40
- Citations by year
- 2026: 35 · 2025: 67 · 2024: 119 · 2023: 147 · 2022: 168 · 2021: 110 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 2 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 122.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- Locations
- Computers & Security (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Kent Academic Repository (University of Kent) (acceptedVersion)
- Abertay Research Portal (Abertay University) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Strathprints: The University of Strathclyde institutional repository (University of Strathclyde) (acceptedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- Florida International University Digital Commons (Florida International University) (submittedVersion)
- Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
- International University of Korea
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Cybercrime and Law Enforcement Studies
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Information and Cyber Security
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, cybercrime, cyberattacks, modus operandi, cybercriminals, government announcements
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