As you may have noticed, there are plenty of scammers who take advantage of the concerns about the new coronavirus Covid-19 disease, not least by sending fake emails asking us to disclose various sensitive information.
400 Security experts started fighting coronavirus scammers
In order to stop phishing and other scams, 400 security researchers from about 40 countries have created a new group called the COVID-19 CTI League, reports the Reuters news agency.
The most important thing for the group is to prevent attacks on health authorities and hospitals, but they also want to deal with the financial crime that has to do with the virus.
“I’ve never seen this volume of phishing,” said Rogers, head of security at the long-running hacking conference Def Con and a vice president at security company Okta Inc OKTA.o. “I am literally seeing phishing messages in every language known to man.”
According to Marc Rogers, the group has already succeeded in stopping a campaign that exploited a vulnerability to spread malicious code.
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Coronavirus is a serious problem when we talk about cybersecurity. Email spammers used COVID-19 to convince people to download malicious attachments. Other fraudsters have set up tens of thousands of websites with pandemic domain names. There are also applications and programs that attack computers and smartphones. We also can’t forget about fraudulent SMSs.
It is worth mentioning that recently, Microsoft reported that its automated systems are not always able to catch every attack. That’s why the company has released a list of warning signs that are part of a phishing campaign. Here are the things that should get our attention:
- Spelling and bad grammar
- Suspicious links
- Suspicious attachments
- Threats
- Spoofing
- Altered web addresses
- The incorrect salutation of your name
- Mismatches
We should also remember that these rules also apply to normal threats not related to coronavirus.