Sadly, it was bound to happen. A woman in Düsseldorf, Germany, has died as a result of a ransomware attack. The 78-year-old victim was to receive critical care at Düsseldorf University Hospital, but the attack had disabled the hospital’s systems. The hospital was forced to reroute her to another facility 19 miles away, delaying her health care by an hour. It is the first known fatality linked to cybercrime.
The sudden shift to remote work models has revealed weaknesses in many corporate networks. In an IDC study of enterprise networking decision-makers conducted in May and June of 2020, 84 percent of respondents said employees are unable to access applications at least weekly due to network connectivity issues. More than half (51 percent) said employees cannot access applications multiple times a week, with 11 percent reporting that this problem occurs daily.