During, Covid-19 several changes occured everywhere in the world. Everyone was forced to self-quarantine; lockdown was imposed and all the works were stopped. But at the given time, most of the people adopted technology to continue with their business and other stuff. Most the services depended on online system because it was the only option remained for the people around the world.

Pakistan is also among those countries which focused on an online system. Many activities, such as online banking, online shopping, medical assistance, online classes, online conferences, audio and video communications etcetera were being done on daily basis. This huge dependency on the internet and online services around the world has created vulnerabilities and more opportunities for data-hungry criminals. In this digital era, the world is facing as much of a threat from cyber criminals as it is facing physical danger from the pandemic.

According to a report of “The Cyber Harassment Helpline of Digital Right Foundation”,  an increase of 98 percent in complaints registered with the Cyber Harassment Helpline. Around 74 percent of the cases in March and April were reported by women, 19 percent by men, and 5 percent by gender non-binary persons.

The police briefed the analysis data from Cyber Harassment Helpline from the months of March and April (2020) and compared it with the data from January and February (2020) to compare how cases have grown during the lockdown.

Moreover, the increased online activity not only augmented the prospects of online cyber attacks and phishing email attacks against the public and private sectors, but also increased the risk of online fake news. During the crisis, the public health sector, including hospitals and antiviral drug research labs, is the most hit by cyber criminal activities around the world. Furthermore, cyber criminals sold fake coronavirus cure online, pretended to be government health agencies in phishing emails. On the other hand, criminals are also inserting malware into online resources to track the pandemic.

Online intellectual property theft is also increasingly becoming a major risk. Cyber attacks have increased along with the rapid world spread of the covid-19 pandemic. Employees are your organizations who can protect themselves by encouraging personnel to be skeptical of email from unfamiliar sources. Cyber team should work with fraud risk management teams to coordinate detection and response activities.

As this pandemic needs a coordinated response, so do the cyber security issues during and after the coronavirus crisis. In countries like Pakistan where cyber security is still a developing field, there is a dire need to recognize the consequences if some critical computer systems get hacked during any crisis like this pandemic. From Pakistan’s context, there is an immense space to work on cyber security police and institutions, develop advanced tools and technology to protect country’s cyberspace and sensitive data, and the economic sector as well. The government also needs to carry out risk assessment and risk management of computer system of major hospitals, which are on the frontline of fight against this pandemic, and the national institute of health [NIH].

One the global level, countries need to understand the necessity of international norms; no state-sponsored activity in cyberspace should be conducted against other country’s critical infrastructure.