Cyber Criminals are Leveraging Coronavirus to Boost Profit

There are Coronavirus (COVID-19) related Cyber threats like:

• Social engineering attacks and phishing especially.
  They use social engineering attacks to impersonate health sector authorities and send malicious phishing emails to trick users into clicking on a link that will redirect them to a fake health information website that will try to steal sensitive information.
• Malware like RAT and Ransomware. They also attach malicious documents like MS Office documents or PDFs pretending to contain Coronavirus related information. These documents may contain malicious MACRO that may drop malware onto the victim’s compute.

Coronavirus phishing websites preventive measures.

Attackers are impersonating WHO or other health sector authorities and are asking victims to give out sensitive information like usernames and passwords.

To prevent these attacks:

• Verify the email sender address
• Don’t click on any links in the body of the email. If you are interested in new information, navigate to the website directly by typing their domain name into your browser
• Don’t give out personal information. No authority will ever ask you to provide personal information or username/password to access public information
• Think critically and don’t act under pressure. Think twice!
• If you think you already gave out your sensitive information, change your password on each site you have used it immediately.
• Report any suspicious activities to your employer and/or authorities.

Learn more: Cyber Security Risks Related to the Novel Coronavirus – COVID 19

Coronavirus related malware

• The most common delivery method of malware is via phishing emails. Attackers attach fake coronavirus info documents containing malicious MACROs that drop malware like Remote Access Tool (RAT), Trojan, keylogger or ransomware onto user’s computer.
• To prevent these attacks:
• Never open any attachments from email that you haven’t requested.
• If you open a document asking you to allow content (allow macros), don’t do it!
• If you think you may already have infected your computer, unplug it from the Internet and call a technician.
• Report any suspicious activities to your employer and/or authorities.

With our Incident Response Retainer solution LIFARS will become your Cyber 911 hotline when you need a rescue team deployed, with rapid remediation and incident containment.

Learn more and stay safe:

• Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Scams
• Defending Against COVID-19 Cyber Scams
• Risk Management for Novel Coronavirus
• Authoritative information on COVID-19
• Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

If your business has been victims of online fraud, contact LIFARS immediately.