Open AccessMalware Infections in the U.S. during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Empirical Study
Author(s) -
Sydney Gero,
Sinchul Back,
Jennifer Lee,
Joonggon Kim
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal of cybersecurity intelligence and cybercrime/international journal of cybersecurity intelligence and cybercrime
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2578-3297
pISSN - 2578-3289
DOI - 10.52306/04020321crbh5596
Subject(s) - malware , pandemic , commit , covid-19 , cybercrime , state (computer science) , political science , computer security , medicine , disease , computer science , the internet , virology , world wide web , infectious disease (medical specialty) , pathology , database , algorithm , outbreak
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world in many ways, especially in the landscape of cyber threats. The pandemic has pro-vided cybercriminals with more opportunities to commit crimes due to more people engaging in online activities, along with the increased use of computers for school, work, and social events. The current study seeks to explore cybercrime trends, in particular malware infections, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study examines the relationship between the number of malware in-fections, COVID-19 positive cases, closed non-essential businesses, and closed K-12 public schools in the United States. Data utilized in this study derives from (1) Kaspersky Cyberthreat Real-Time Map, (2) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and (3) COVID-19 US State Policy Database over the course of six months from January of 2020 to June of 2020. The findings of this study reveal that there are associations between the number of malware infections, COVID-19 positive cases, and closed non-essential busi-nesses. However, interestingly, there is no link between the number of malware infections and closed K-12 public schools. Policy impli-cations and the limitations of this study are also discussed.