18 March 2020
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Cyber criminals are making the most of the COVID-19 pandemic by creating phishing schemes and fake websites that mimic legitimate sources of information about the virus. These malicious emails and websites can download malware (malicious software) to your computer, and trick you into revealing your personal details.
Here are two of the main schemes currently in operation, but there are many others and more are likely to arise as the situation continues.
World Health Organization phishing email
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a trusted source of information about the COVID-19 virus but cyber criminals have created a phishing email to steal user details and download malicious software. It is particularly difficult to identify as it utilises the real World Health Organization website to fool users into sharing their details.
Here’s how it works:
This is just one example of a phishing email from a health organisation but there are many others.
What can you do?
To protect yourself against schemes like this:
John Hopkins University Mirror Website
The John Hopkins University Coronavirus map is a legitimate source of information on virus-spread throughout the world.
Cyber criminals are using information from this website to prompt users to download a piece of software to generate the map. As the map does not require any software to be downloaded, this is a prompt to download a piece of malware.
What can you do?
You can stay up-to-date on this and other Cyber Security news by joining the Cyber Security Workplace group and the Cyber Security SharePoint where our cyber-experts post frequently about industry news and advice.
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