Skip to main content

Hackers take advantage of Coronavirus panic, launch Cyberattacks


The whole world is in high alert with coronavirus COVID-19, as being declared a pandemic and every government is making a tremendous effort to get the virus under control and protect its citizens. The virus already has everyone in a panic with the loss of life, tumbling economy and the global shutdown but one group is seemingly using this chaos and panic to its advantage. As the virus makes headlines daily, people heed to every information they can get to beat COVID-19, and hackers are using this to their gain. Several cybersecurity firms have reported cases and attacks in various forms by hackers using COVID-19 to lure their victims into spreading malware and falling into other traps. People are staying indoors and working from home and increasingly using the internet which presents as a sweet cake for hackers.


Here is how hackers are exploiting the global panic from the virus

Phishing Mails and Malwares
FireEye a cybersecurity company, has learned about cybersecurity threats coming from China, North Korea, and Russia. Chinese hacking group attacks East Asia, the North Korean groups are targeting South Korean Non-governmental Organizations and Russian groups are attacking parts of Ukraine. These use phishing emails and spams to spread malware but they are not just limited to malware, some mails are business mails to fish out money from the receiver.

Stealing Personal Information
A Chinese group named Vicious Panda by the security firms has tricked people into sharing sensitive personal information using a document from Mongolian Health Ministry. Other hackers are using maps and dashboards for stealing personal information reports Reason Labs. The most common one is the abuse of the dashboard created by John Hopkins University. People rely on these to track the spread of the virus and know the infected number.

Fake Apps, Websites Imposters, and Misinformation 
Among other methods are - Fake Apps to track the spread of coronavirus and the infected patient, where they went, where not to go, virus hotspots. These apps are filled with malware and could be asking you to pay money. Then there are the Fake websites, where the actors imposter global organizations like the World Health Organization. Some social media campaigns and accounts are also responsible for sharing misinformation about the virus that it's a conspiracy of rival countries.

The crux is, as long as COVID-19 remains a threat, hackers will continue to take its advantage, so we need to be diligent and smart while surfing the net to avoid being scammed. A few steps like only trusting variable sources for information on the virus life

  • Use a trustable source of information on the virus. 
  • Not installing apps from unverified sources. 
  • Don't pay anything to any website or application, only trust government sources. 
  • Don't open spam emails or any attachment if it's not known.


source https://www.ehackingnews.com/2020/03/hackers-take-advantage-of-coronavirus.html
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Betting and Gambling Websites under Cyberattack from Chinese Hackers

Since last year's summers, Chinese hackers have been targeting South Asian companies that own online gambling and betting websites. The gambling companies in South Asia have confirmed the hacks, whereas rumors of cyberattacks on betting websites have also emerged from Europe, and the Middle East, however, the rumors are yet to confirm, says the reports of cybersecurity group Trend Micro and Talent-Jump. Cybersecurity experts claim that no money was stolen in these hacks against the gambling websites. However, hackers have stolen source codes and databases. The motive of the attack was not a cybercrime, but rather espionage intended attack to gain intelligence. According to the experts, a group named ' DRBControl ' is responsible for the cyberattack. According to the reports of Trend Micro, the hacking techniques used in this particular cyberattack incident is similar to methods done by Emissary Panda and Winnti. All of these hacking groups are from China that has launc...
5 comments
Read more

Github Escapes from Octopus Malware that Affected its 26 Software Projects

Github, a platform where every malicious software report is equally different in its place, manages to escape from a malware threat.  Github, an organization that united the world's largest community of coders and software developers, revealed that hackers exploited an open-source platform on its website to distribute malware. The hackers used a unique hacking tool that enabled backdoors in each software project, which the hackers used to infiltrate the software systems. "While we have seen many cases where the software supply chain was compromised by hijacking developer credentials or typosquatting popular package names, a malware that abuses the build process and its resulting artifacts to spread is both interesting and concerning for multiple reasons," said Github on its security blog. Fortunately, the hackers attempt to exploit the open-source platform was unsuccessful. Still, if it were, on the contrary, hackers could've secured a position in the softwares, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Maze Ransomware Operators Leaked 2GB of Financial Data from Bank of Costa Rica (BCR)

Bank of Costa Rica (BCR) has been receiving threats from the threat actors behind Maze ransomware who have stolen credit card details from the bank, the ransomware gang started publishing the encrypted financial details this week. The Banco de Costa Rica is one of the strongest state-owned commercial banks operated in Costa Rica, starting from humble origins of mainly being a private commercial bank, it expanded to become a currency issuer and one of the most renowned baking firms in Central America contributing largely in the financial development of the nation. The hacker group behind the data leak have demanded a ransom from Banco de Costa Rica at various occasions, however, to their dismay they observed a lack of seriousness in the way the bank dealt with these previous leaks and it served as a primary reason that motivated the latest data leak, according to an interview with Maze ransomware operators. As per the claims made by the attackers, Banco de Costa Rica's netw...
Post a Comment
Read more