When the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak back in late May this year, about 40% of the global population i.e. 3 billion people were subjected to lockdowns in one form or another.

For those who are working, 88% of organizations have encouraged or required their employees to work from home (WFH). Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, calls for businesses to embark on the digital transformation process for their operations have generally been met with lukewarm responses.

The Story So Far

Based on a survey undertaken by global research and advisory firm Gartner, notwithstanding the rapid pace of development in the digital technology domain the amount of capital invested by businesses for digital transformation has reduced by 3% from 13% to 10% during the four years period from 2013 to 2017.

Having learnt their lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic, about one in five (19%) of global enterprises i.e. those with annual revenues of more than US$63 million have increased spending on digital transformation for the first half of 2020.

Nonetheless with this global shift towards digital transformation, a critical area which needs to be addressed is that of cybersecurity lest business organizations end up paying too high a price for their digital needs.

Cyber Hacking Threats Against Cloud Computing Platforms

In the world of cyber hacking, a threat vector refers to a path or a means by which a cybercriminal gains access to a computer system. Since the escalation of the Covid-19 pandemic, the use of cloud computing services by business enterprises has risen by an astounding 50% whereas the use of cloud collaboration tools has recorded a six-fold increase.

Statistics compiled by leading cybersecurity firm McAfee found that online attacks on cloud accounts have risen by a worrying 630% since the imposition of Covid-19 lock downs by governments around the world.

In a perfect world digital infrastructure such as cloud-based frameworks would have been designed in accordance with the principle of security by design whereby each and every part of the underlying technological architecture would be equipped with automated security.

Alas, our world is far from being a perfect one though thankfully we have a technological gift in the form of blockchain which by its very nature is secure by design.

Decentralization Shield Against DDoS Attacks

From the outset, the decentralized nature of blockchain renders there to be an absence of a centralized database for cybercriminals to target. This is particularly pertinent in tackling cyber threats such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks which are prevalent in the cloud computing domain.

By the end of 2020, the number of DDoS attacks is expected to reach a worrying 17 million whereby this would be a 2.6 fold increase over the preceding five years.

Great Lockdown Economic Recession 

Covid-19 lockdowns, which have been collectively referred to as the Great Lockdown due to their devastating impact on the economy, is projected to cause a global recession with the annual growth of the world’s economy for 2020 being projected to contract by 3%.

With successful DDoS attacks potentially rewarding its perpetrators in the range of between US$20,000 to US$40,000 for every hour during which the attack subsists, it does not take a rocket scientist to envisage that the pressing need for cash due to the global economic calamity is likely to result in the recent spike in DDoS attacks on cloud computing platforms being a continuous trend.

Given the immunity offered by decentralization against DDoS attacks, perhaps the solution for securing the clouds in the age of the new normal may lie in the technological wonder that is blockchain.

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