Security experts have warned that remote workers in London, England are being targeted by cyberattacks after a honeypot attracted 2,000 attacks per minute. According to the researchers, 91 million threats were identified over a 28-day period in January. Insurer Coalition erected a series of honeypots in collaboration with the Cyber Resilience Centre for London in order to accurately assess the cyber threat level facing organizations operating in London and the surrounding areas.
The honeypots help researchers to learn about threat actors and the methods they are using to target individuals. Once the attack is launched, the researchers can see which vulnerabilities are being sought out and how they are being exploited. The honeypots were assigned IP addresses that identified as physical data centers located in London. 85% of the attacks identified against the honeypots consisted of cyberattackers attempting to hijack remote desktop connections typically used by remote employees. The attacks were traced back to over 100,000 different threat actors, with most of the attacks originating from Russia. However, many threat actors use advanced VPNs to disguise their actual location. The honeypots help to illustrate the level of threat facing remote workers.
