The world currently is facing an unimaginable pandemic of COVID-19. While the world is facing it together and putting their best to curb this disaster, Cybercriminals are trying their best to take advantage of this situation.
This showed how few malicious minds stop at nothing. The greatest danger facing the world apart from the pandemic itself is the increase in cybercrimes. Cybercriminals are using the tension and fear among people to attack them.
As most of the world is practising social distancing and isolation. The only way to reach out to information and updates is via the internet and technology. The cybercriminals are doing phishing attacks on public and private accounts, stealing their sensitive information and data. Many such groups have claimed that they won’t be hampering the medical centres. The fact remains that there is no control over how far this Malware will spread.
COVID-19 Cybercriminals
Since people have been using certain applications to keep themselves updated on the status of COVID-19 around the world. These cybercriminals started phishing with the help of fake informative pages. The majority of the attacks are taking place through trapped mails. The main question arising is what is being done to control such attacks. The cybersecurity professionals are doing there best to restrict and block any such malicious mails from reaching the public accounts. There are also many pop-up links floating on the internet showing COVID-19 maps, which is another tool used by these hackers.
In the current situation, the best you can do is to keep your devices updated with the latest security software and antivirus services. There are many such services available for the users of Windows, Android and iOS. Turning on your cloud protection can also help in the easy detection of such Malware reaching your devices, which in turn will put the threats down.
Also, enabling the protecting features on your mail service will protect it from Malware mails. You can also use the MFA (multi-factor authentication) on all your active accounts to keep them safe from any cyber-attacks.
Safety Tips
Do research on such attacks, how they take place and how you can identify, stop and report them. Here are a few tips on how you can identify such threats on your device:
- Bad use of grammar and wrong spellings: Cybercriminals are not good with grammar and spelling. It is easy to identify such emails or floating adds with their wrong sentence structures. Professionals never make such mistakes. Any mail filled with errors is likely spam.
- Suspicious links: If you receive a mail from an unknown source and you find it suspicious, do not click on such links. You can check its authenticity by getting your cursor on it but not clicking on it. resting the mouse reveals the link address of the message so that you can identify the source.
- Suspicious attachments: If you ever receive a mail with an attachment from an unknown source, beware that it might be a phishing attack. We suggest not opening such attachments unless you verify its authenticity. Because clicking on such links allow the hacker to enter into your device, steal its information easily, and access your data and passwords.
- Threats: These mails create pressure or panic, baiting you to respond to them quickly out of suspicion or curiosity. It might address like “respond quickly” or something like that. Beware of such scams and do not open such mails.
- Spoofing: The spoofing emails often use legitimate web addresses, but while you open the link it lands you on an anonymous page with several pop-up windows and that’s how the attackers get into your device.
By being aware of such signs and noticing them, you can secure your device and data from the attacks of hackers and maintain good cybersecurity.
