Dubai: 2020 wasn’t just the year of the COVID-19 – cyber threats spiked throughout the year and more so as peoples’ lives were spent interacting through digital screens. There were more than 10 million Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks worldwide last year, and the UAE alone saw an 183 per cent spike, according to Help AG, the cybersecurity arm of Etisalat. “This increase has made DDoS attacks by far the most prolific form of cybersecurity threats faced by organizations today,” said the report from Help AG. The government, private, oil and gas, telecom and healthcare sectors faced a particularly harsh onslaught, with attacks targeting specific customers using varying attack patterns.